Iron pyrite has seen a renewed interest in the past few years as a promising earth-abundant, non-toxic semiconductor material for solar energy conversion.  Pyrite has many appealing properties such as direct/indirect bandgaps of 1.03 & 0.95 eV, absorptivity of 6x105 cm-1, and high charge mobility (for single crystals). However, recent attempts to make solar cells using pyrite nanostructures or thin films have been hampered by the presence of impurity phases (such as marcasite) and an observed defect-induced degenerately-doped behavior, which lead to low or no photovoltage. To date, the only means of synthesizing phase purity pyrite thin films requires a harsh sulfidation step at high temperatures to eliminate the other impurity phases.Here we report a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis of phase-pure pyrite thin films with micron-sized crystalline domains using FeCl3 and di-tert butyl disulfide (TBDS) precursors on conductive substrates under suitable reaction conditions. The phase-purity was confirmed using X-ray diffraction, Raman Spectroscopy and other structural characterization techniques. The transport properties and electrochemical properties of the pyrite thin films will be reported. The ability to grow high quality, phase-pure pyrite thin films represents an important first step in the eventual realization of solar cell devices based on pyrite.

Direct chemical vapor deposition synthesis of phase-pure iron pyrite thin films

246th National Meeting (2013)

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