Synthesis of B-Sb by rapid thermal annealing of B/Sb multilayer films

Abstract

B-Sb films were synthesized from B/Sb/…/B multilayer films deposited by electron gun evaporation onto a fused silica substrate and subjecting the above multilayer to rapid thermal annealing at 773 K for 3 min. The films thus prepared were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron micrographs (TEM), photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and optical studies. XPS studies indicated the ratio of B : Sb ∼ 1 : 1. XRD and electron diffraction patterns indicated the reflections from (100), (111), (102) and (112) planes of zinc blende BSb. The band gap evaluated from optical studies (∼0.51 eV) was found to be an indirect one and tallied well with that obtained form ab initio calculation for BSb near X (Γ15 V → Δmin) ∼ 0.527 eV. The refractive index of the films varied between 1.65 and 2.18 with increasing energy of the incident photon and the plasma frequency (ωp) was estimated to be ∼2.378 × 1014 s−1. The effective mass was computed to be ∼0.085 me.