One-pot synthesis and characterization of chalcopyrite CuInS2 nanoparticles

Abstract

We synthesized tetragonal chalcopyrite CuInS₂ (CIS) nanoparticles from molecular single source precursors, (Ph₃P)₂Cu-(μ-SEt)₂In(SEt)₂, by a one-pot reaction in the presence of 3-mercaptopropionic acid at reaction times of 3 hours or less with high yields. In our approach, NaCl as a by-product was used as a heat transfer agent via a conventional convective heating method. We tuned the sizes of nanoparticles through manipulation of the reaction temperature, reaction time, precursor, and thiol concentration. The sizes of nanoparticles from 1.8 nm to 5.2 nm were obtained as reaction temperatures were increased from 150 °C to 190 °C. The method developed in this study is scalable to achieve production of ultra-large quantities of tetragonal chalcopyrite CIS nanoparticles. The resulting nanoparticles were analyzed by UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, EDAX, and HRTEM.