Structural, electronic and optical properties of pulsed laser deposited Cu2SnS3 photo absorber thin films: A combined experimental and computational study

Pulsed laser deposited thin films of Cu2SnS3 (CTS) are characterized for the structural, electronic and optical properties using X-ray diffraction, Raman, UV–Vis-NIR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopic techniques, and density functional theory. It is observed that thin-film samples annealed at low temperature have a metastable tetragonal structure, whereas the films annealed at 450 °C have a predominant stable monoclinic phase. A direct band gap of 1.1 eV, measured from the transmittance spectra, in close agreement with the theoretical band gap value of 0.89 eV obtained from density functional theory calculations. Optical properties reveal that CTS has a large absorption coefficient ~0.5 × 104 cm−1 at 1.5 eV which is comparable to other CuS based materials like CuInS2 and Cu2ZnSnS4. The direct band gap and large absorption coefficient make CTS as one of the potential alternative absorber materials for thin-film solar cell applications.