Synthesis and characterization of thermally evaporated Cu2SnSe3 ternary semiconductor

Abstract Copper Tin Selenide (CuSnSe) powder was mechanically alloyed by high energy planetary ball milling, starting from elemental powders. Synthesis time and velocity have been optimized to produce Cu 2 SnSe 3 materials. Thin films were prepared by thermal evaporation on Corning glass substrate at T s  = 300 °C. The structural, compositional, morphological and optical properties of the synthesized semiconductor have been analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy. The analyzed powder exhibited a cubic crystal structure, with the presence of Cu 2 Se as a secondary phase. On the other hand, the deposited films showed a cubic Cu 2 SnSe 3 ternary phase and extra peaks belonging to some binary compounds. Furthermore, optical measurements showed that the deposited layers have a relatively high absorption coefficient of 10 5  cm −1 and present a band gap of 0.94 eV.