Solution-based Syntheses of Iron Pyrite Thin Films for Photovoltaic and Protein Foot-printing Applications

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Author(s): El Makkaoui, Mohammed | Advisor(s): Law, Matt D | Abstract: Iron pyrite (cubic FeS2) is a non-toxic, earth abundant semiconductor possessing a set of excellent optical/electronic properties for serving as an absorber layer in PV devices. Additionally, pyrite is a very efficient hydroxyl radical generator via Fenton chemistry and has shown promise in oxidative protein and DNA foot-printing application. The main focus of this thesis is on fabricating phase and elementally pure iron pyrite thin films using a solution-based approach that employs hydrazine as a solvent. A precursor ink is formed at room temperature by mixing elemental iron and sulfur in anhydrous hydrazine and then deposited on Mo-coated glass substrates, via spin coating, to yield amorphous iron sulfide films that are then annealed in H2S (340 o C) and sulfur gas (≤ 500 o C) to form uniform, polycrystalline and phase pure pyrite films with densely packed grains. This approach is likely to yield the most elementa

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