Its semiconducting and optical properties make copper indium disulfide, CuInS₂ (CIS), a very promising material in photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical cells.

Mikhail Pashchanka, Rudolf C. Hoffmann, Jörg J. Schneider, TU Darmstadt, Germany, synthesized polycrystalline ternary CIS nanorods with stoichiometric composition. They used a nanocasting approach employing track-etched polycarbonate films as soft templates. The CuInS₂ chalcopyrite phase was obtained by using molecular copper and indium oximato complexes and thiourea as single-source precursors. Well-separated and aligned nanorod bundles of CIS with controllable Cu/In/S ratio in high yield and uniform morphology were yielded. The performance of CIS is usually related to its stoichiometric composition, which depends strongly on the preparation conditions.

The utilized solution approach is very promising for future solar applications.

• A Molecular Precursor Approach to 3D Aligned CuInS₂ Chalcopyrite Nanorod Arrays,
  Mikhail Pashchanka, Rudolf C. Hoffmann, Jörg J. Schneider,
  Eur J. Inorg. Chem. 2012.
  DOI: 10.1002/ejic.201200886