Property elucidation of vacuum-evaporated zinc telluride thin film towards optoelectronic devices

Abstract

A thermal vacuum evaporation system has been used to deposit zinc telluride (ZnTe) thin film on glass substrate in order to investigate the structural, morphological, optoelectronic and electrical properties of the deposited film. The deposited film has been characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer. The polycrystalline and cubic structure of the sample has been confirmed by XRD. The order parameter(s), which determines the crystallinity and good environmental stability of the sample, has been obtained for the peak (1 1 1) to peak (2 0 0) and is found to be 0.83. The XRD patterns and Bragg’s law have been examined to determine the microstructural parameters (lattice parameter, inter-planar spacing, crystallite size, number of crystallites per unit area, strain, dislocation density) of the investigated film. Optical properties (transmittance, absorbance, refractive index, absorption coefficient, extinction coefficient, optical density) of ZnTe thin film were extensively studied in incident photon energy range of 0.5–3.5 eV, where direct optical transition has been obtained with a band gap of 2.63 eV. The surface morphology of the evaporated ZnTe thin film has been checked by AFM.