TY - JOUR
T1 - Honeycomb-structured copper indium sulfide thin films obtained via a nanosphere colloidal lithography method
AU - Vakalopoulou, Efthymia
AU - Rath, Thomas
AU - Warchomicka, Fernando Gustavo
AU - Carraro, Francesco
AU - Falcaro, Paolo
AU - Amenitsch, Heinz
AU - Trimmel, Gregor
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge Graz University of Technology for financial support through the Lead Project Porous Materials at Work (LP-03). Moreover, the authors acknowledge the CERIC-ERIC consortium for the access to experimental facilities (Austrian SAXS beamline at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste) and financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 RSC
PY - 2022/2/24
Y1 - 2022/2/24
N2 - The large surface-to-volume ratio and the huge surface area of an ordered nanostructure is essential for improving the performance of many metal sulfide-based technologies within energy conversion and storage, but also catalysis and sensing. Although, several routes toward the formation of nanostructured metal sulfide thin films have been already developed, their fabrication is still challenging. Herein, we present a novel method for the preparation of honeycomb-structured CuInS2 thin films via a nanosphere colloidal lithography technique using monodisperse polystyrene nanosphere layers, formed by a self-assembly approach at the air/liquid interface, as template. The size of the spheres can be reduced by an O2 plasma etching process, thereby enlarging the free space between the spheres. Infiltration of the template with metal xanthates followed by their thermal conversion to CuInS2 and the thermal removal of the polymeric template leads to ordered honeycomb-structured films. In an alternative route, the template is infiltrated with a tailored CuInS2 nanoparticle ink before the template is removed by dissolution.
AB - The large surface-to-volume ratio and the huge surface area of an ordered nanostructure is essential for improving the performance of many metal sulfide-based technologies within energy conversion and storage, but also catalysis and sensing. Although, several routes toward the formation of nanostructured metal sulfide thin films have been already developed, their fabrication is still challenging. Herein, we present a novel method for the preparation of honeycomb-structured CuInS2 thin films via a nanosphere colloidal lithography technique using monodisperse polystyrene nanosphere layers, formed by a self-assembly approach at the air/liquid interface, as template. The size of the spheres can be reduced by an O2 plasma etching process, thereby enlarging the free space between the spheres. Infiltration of the template with metal xanthates followed by their thermal conversion to CuInS2 and the thermal removal of the polymeric template leads to ordered honeycomb-structured films. In an alternative route, the template is infiltrated with a tailored CuInS2 nanoparticle ink before the template is removed by dissolution.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127932115&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/d2ma00004k
DO - 10.1039/d2ma00004k
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127932115
SN - 2633-5409
VL - 3
SP - 2884
EP - 2895
JO - Materials Advances
JF - Materials Advances
IS - 6
ER -