Photoactive Cu2fesns4 Thin Films: Influence Of Stabilizers

Quaternary photo-active metal chalcogenide Cu2FeSnS4 (CFTS) were deposited by the sol-gel method. The negative differential resistance (NDR) phenomenon and resistive switching (RS) characteristics at room temperature was observed on ITO/CFTS/Al device. The formation of CFTS was studied in the presence of different stabilizers like lactic acid and monoethanolamine. The use of dissimilar stabilizers has led to the change in the absorption and reflectance properties of the CFTS. The impact of stabilizer on the optical band-gap energy was enumerated from UV-Vis studies. The electrical bistability of these samples was studied amongst which the thin film fabricated with the aid of lactic acid exhibited better performance and can be extensively used for memory applications like random access memory (RAM) applications. Finally, the as-fabricated CFTS thin films were sulfurized and the photo-electrical properties were examined. From these studies, it is inferred that the electrical bistability vanishes after sulfurization. However, the photo-response of the sulfurized sample was improved when compared to its counterpart. These works provide a breakthrough for exploring the memory application of multifunctional material with further multiple physical attributes.