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Bath temperature and deposition potential dependences of CuSCN nanorod arrays prepared by electrochemical deposition

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Abstract

In this study, we report on the electrodeposition of p-type semiconductor copper thiocyanate (CuSCN) nanorods on ITO substrate from an aqueous solution. The influence of the bath temperature and deposition potential on the properties of CuSCN layers was studied. Nanorods deposited at low temperature (25 °C) exhibited better crystalline quality and orientation along the c-axis than the nanorods grown at elevated temperatures. The deposition potential turned out to influence strongly the crystallographic orientation, the morphology, as well as the optical properties of the product. Mott–Schottky measurement demonstrates that the CuSCN nanorods are p-type semiconductor, with a hole concentration (N A) eight times larger than that of the 2D thin films when the cylindrical geometry of the nanorods was taken into consideration. The CuSCN nanorods obtained in this study can be used as inexpensive inorganic hole-transporting material in solar energy application and it offers new possibilities to fabricate nanostructured solar cells in reversed process, which starts from the formation of nanostructured p-type electrode.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51372187, 51405356), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (2014M550415), and the Innovation Research Foundation of Wuhan University of Technology (2014-IV-037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Automotive Components, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Xiaoyan Gan

  2. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Automotive Components Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Xiaoyan Gan

  3. School of Material Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Keyong Liu, Xiangjun Du, Liling Guo & Hanxing Liu

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  1. Xiaoyan Gan
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  2. Keyong Liu
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Correspondence to Hanxing Liu.

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Gan, X., Liu, K., Du, X. et al. Bath temperature and deposition potential dependences of CuSCN nanorod arrays prepared by electrochemical deposition. J Mater Sci 50, 7866–7874 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9267-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9267-7

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