ANU KURUVILLA
Articles written in Bulletin of Materials Science
Volume 45 All articles Published: 7 April 2022 Article ID 0066
Replacement of sulphur with selenium in antimony sulphide thin films
ANU KURUVILLA MELDA FRANCIS K S SUDHEER M LAKSHMI
This study aims to determine the extent to which sulphur can be replaced with selenium in the Sb$_2$S$_3$ matrix. The relevance of this work is that this replacement reaction forms the underlying principle for the formation of the ternary compound AgSbSe$_2$ from the binary compound Sb$_2$S$_3$. AgSbSe$_2$ is a compound semiconductor belonging to the I-V-VI$_2$ group that has applications in photovoltaics. Even though there are numerous reports of heating multilayers of Sb$_2$S$_3$/Ag/Se or Sb$_2$S$_3$/Ag$_2$Se/Ag to produce AgSbSe$_2$, none of them have resulted in a pure ternary phase. This study explores the possibilities and limitations of the replacement of sulphur with selenium in antimony sulphide thin film. In this work, selenium is deposited on Sb$_2$S$_3$ layer and the resulting structure is annealed at 200°C. The replacement reaction was found to be incomplete at this temperature. The temperature of annealing could not be increased any further as the elemental selenium could not with stand higher temperatures. Hence, a protective layer of silver was coated on top of the selenium layer, and the temperature of annealing was increased to higher values. X-raydiffraction, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the multilayer film.
Volume 46, 2023
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Prof. Subi Jacob George — Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bengaluru
Chemical Sciences 2020
Prof. Surajit Dhara — School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad
Physical Sciences 2020
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