Abstract
Structural, compositional, morphological and electrical characterizations of the vacuum annealed Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films were carried out in this study. The films were annealed at the low temperature (200 degrees C) for a long time (1- 3 hours) without excessive sulphur ambient to investigate the possibility of (i) low temperature process and (ii) eluding the post deposition sulphurization process, respectively. The change in the microstructure with subsequent recrystallization and grain growth was observed in annealed thin films. The crystallite grain size, lattice constant, microstrain and dislocation densities of the films are quite different for the different films as observed from XRD analysis. The films are found in Zn poor and Cu rich and the ratio of Cu/(Zn+Sn) show that the films are very poor stoichiometric. The lowest resistivity 30.6 Omega-cm with mobility 6.8 cm(2)/V-sec and highest resistivity 97.2 Omega-cm with mobility 5.4 cm(2)/V-sec was observed for as-deposited and annealed CZTS thin films, respectively.