In situ fabricate Cu2S thin film with hierarchical petal-like nanostructures

In this paper, Cu2S thin film with hierarchical petal-like nanostructures has been successfully in situ synthesized via a solvothermal method using DMSO as reactant under appropriate reaction conditions. The crystalline phase, morphology and optical properties of the resulting products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, respectively. The band gap is estimated to be about 1.0 eV by the results of UV–vis absorption spectroscopy of the Cu2S thin film with hierarchical nanostructures that consisted of nanoslices with the thickness of 15 nm. The formation process of Cu2S and the possible mechanism of hierarchical nanostructures were also proposed. These findings are valuable since Cu2S thin film with hierarchical petal-like nanostructures are promising candidate as lithium ion battery and solar cell materials.