Differential growth and evaluation of band structure of π-SnS for thin-film solar cell applications

Abstract

Thin-films and nanomaterials with asymmetrical centers are widely used, and a representative example is π-SnS. The cubic phase of SnS is a “thermodynamic metastable” polymorph of SnS that has not been investigated extensively. Maintaining the stability of π-SnS intact and device fabrication are challenging owing to the lack of proper understanding of the nucleation and growth properties. We report a substrate-specific differential growth attribute of π-SnS based on the chemical deposition route. We evaluated the optical properties and band structure of π-SnS and achieved an efficiency of ~ 0.12% for a preliminary thin-film solar cell device.