Electrochemical growth and studies of CuInSe2 thin films

Thin films of CuInSe2 were grown on fluorine doped tin oxide (<10 Omega/square) coated glass using the electrodeposition technique. The electrodeposition was carried out potentiostatically using an aqueous bath consisting of solutions of CuCl2, InCl3 and SeO2 with ethylenediamine-dihydrochloride (EDC) added for complexation. CuInSe2 films were also deposited without using any complexing agent in the bath. To improve the crystallinity the CuInSe2 films were annealed in vaccum at 300 degrees C for one hour. The annealed films were analyzed by x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive analysis of x-rays (EDAX), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical spectra. The results obtained in this work show that by adding a suitable complexing agent to the electrochemical bath, nanocrystalline CuInSe2, 20 nm to 30 nm in size, can be grown. The composition of the CuInSe2 films can be controlled by means of the bath composition and stoichiometric films can be obtained for a bath with ionic Cu:In:Se composition close to 1:4:2. AFM micrographs show that the particles are generally oval shaped for near stoichiometric compositions. However for extreme copper rich layers, the morphology is completely different, the particles in this case appearing in the form of nanoflakes. Each flake has a thickness in the nano range, but the surface extends to a length of several microns.