Altered the structural, morphological and optical properties of SbSe thin films through swift heavy ion irradiation

Abstract

Abstract Chalcogenide based phase change materials are gaining attention due to their ability to exhibit expeditious and reversible structural transition from amorphous to crystalline phase. This work included the effect of swift heavy silver (Ag9+) ion-irradiation (120 MeV), at various fluences (5E11, 1E12, 5E12 and 1E13 ions/cm2) on the structural, optical and morphological properties of pristine and annealed (250 ° C) SbSe thin films. The pristine films undergo a structural transition from amorphous to crystalline upon annealing and from crystalline to amorphous upon irradiation of annealed films. Structural transition caused by annealing and ion-irradiation resulted in a drastic change in morphology and optical properties. The annealed films exhibited less transmission than the pristine and irradiated films, which increased with increase in ion-irradiation fluences because of phase transition. After irradiation, the optical band decreased for pristine thin films, because the forbidden gap defect concentration has increased, but increased after irradiating the annealed thin films that may be due to annealing out of dense localized defect states. The significant optical contrast upon phase transition in near infrared region can be utilized for different optoelectronic applications.