Development of zinc phosphide as a p-type absorber

In the present contribution, we report a simple and repeatable process for the synthesis of zinc phosphide on two different substrates, zinc foil and zinc evaporated on molybdenum-coated glass. Zinc phosphide has been an important candidate for optoelectronic applications and has also been explored in the lithium ion batteries. Zinc phosphide is synthesized from earth-abundant constituents, zinc and phosphorous. Trioctylphosphine (TOP) is used as a source of phosphorous which reacts with zinc and results in the growth of zinc phosphide. Zinc phosphide has been successfully synthesized in both continuous thin film and nanowires form around ~ 350°C. The synthesized zinc phosphide phase was characterized using SEM, EDS, XRD and XPS. Possible growth mechanism is discussed.