An electropolymerizable copper(II) salpen complex has been synthesized and utilized to produce conducting metallopolymers. These metallopolymers serve as scaffolds to create novel Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) nanoparticle/conducting polymer hybrid materials.  Room temperature solution processing was used to grow CZTS nanoparticles within the conducting metallopolymer film, utilizing the Cu(II) metal ions in the metallopolymer as nucleation sites.  Modification of the growth conditions changed the composition of the CZTS nanoparticles within the range:  (Cu2Sn)x/3Zn1-xS  (0 = x = .75).   Optical band gaps were determined using spectroelectrochemistry.  EDS and SAED experiments were conducted to verify the CZTS composition, and XPS and PXRD experiments were performed to further study the nanoparticles. Photodiode performance was evaluated by construction of devices (glass:ITO:CZTS metallopolymer:Al).  Nanoparticle composition was used to tune the band gap alignment within the hybrid materials, which demonstrated modest photovoltaic behavior when x = 0.60: ? = 0.1%, VOC =0.523 V, JSC =0.367 mA/cm2, FF=0.471.

Seeded growth and composition-controlled band gap alignment of (Cu2Sn)x/3Zn1-xS nanoparticles in a conducting metallopolymer matrix

244th National Meeting (2012)

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