Structure and optical properties of polycrystalline ZnSe thin films: validity of Swanepol’s approach for calculating the optical parameters

Abstract

Abstract Ultrasonically cleaned glass slides are used as substrates for receiving the different thickness of Zinc selenide (ZnSe) films. The deposition processes of our investigated films were done at room temperature using physical thermal evaporation mechanism under vacuum ≈2 × 105 mbar. We investigated the optical and structural parameters of ZnSe thin films in correlation with film thickness (200–650 nm). Various techniques such as UV–vis-NIR spectrophotometer, x-ray diffraction lines and field emission scanning electron microscope were used to investigate aforementioned parameters. Structural analysis indicate that the films exhibited cubic preferred orientation along the plane (111) and the crystallinity and crystallite size of films increases linearly with film thickness. The optical band gap ranges from 2.69 to 2.81 eV and it is founded that it increases with film thickness. According to the applied Swanepoel’s approach, it is possible to estimate the optical parameters and average thickness of the ZnSe thin films of different thicknesses with higher accuracy.