Electrochemical growth of Cu-Zn sulfides of various stoichiometries

The Electrochemical Atomic Layer Deposition (ECALD) methodology has been recently employed to synthesize thin films of ternary Cu-Zn sulfides, technologically relevant for photovoltaic semiconductors. This approach, which represents probably the first successful synthesis of a ternary Cu-Zn sulfide, consisted in alternate ECALD depositions of CuS and ZnS layers that yielded a compound with a Cu/Zn ratio of about 6, thus confirming the low contribution of Zn in ternary compound already evidenced in previous studies. This paper, which represents the logical sequel, shows that it is possible to establish a well defined relationship between deposition sequence and stoichiometry as done for the other ternary compounds containing Z