Structured zinc indium sulfide films via polystyrene nanosphere templates for photocatalysis

Description

Metal sulfides are a versatile material class for green energy, showing application possibilities in solar cells, photocatalysis as well as energy storage. While in literature there are many reports on the synthesis, characterization and application of metal sulfide films, only a few explore the topic of structured metal sulfide thin films. To obtain such structured thin films mostly either soft-templating with directing agents and hard-templating with for example mesoporous silica can be found. Falling under the category of soft-templating, in this poster nanosphere colloidal lithography with metal xanthates as precursors was employed.
Polystyrene nanospheres (PS-NS) with approximate diameters of 0.3 µm served as templating agent via a self-assembly process at an air/water interface [1]. This is followed by an infiltration of the template of the precursor solution. Then a thermal treatment first converts the xanthates to the metal sulfide and allows a subsequent removal of the PS template, leaving the honeycomb-structured zinc indium sulfide with macropores in the 0.3 µm regime [2].
The produced films are characterized with classical UV-Vis Spectroscopy and XRD, as well as optical and electron microscopy methods.

Period	8 Mar 2023
Event title	Materials for Sustainable Development Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	València, SpainShow on map