Metal–organic precursors for ternary and quaternary metal chalcogenide nanoparticles and thin films

Abstract

Ternary and quaternary metal chalcogenides are important semiconductor materials, which have applications in various technologies, such as, supercapacitors, batteries, fuel cells, photocatalytic, thermoelectric and magnetic devices. There is a special interest in use of these multinary materials in energy generation and energy storage applications, due to much higher efficiencies as compared to binary semiconducting materials. However, the synthesis of phase and composition controlled ternary/quaternary nanomaterials or thin films, with high reproducibility and scalability, require optimized conditions. The use of carefully designed precursors can be a cost effective and reproducible route to the synthesis of such materials. In this chapter, we have reviewed the synthesis of ternary and quaternary metal chalcogenide nanomaterials and/or thin films from metal organic single source precursors by different routes.