Investigation of structural and optical properties of 100 MeV F⁷⁺ ion irradiated Ga₁₀Se_90-xAl_x thin films

Abstract

Present work focuses on the effect of swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation of 100 MeV F⁷⁺ ions by varying the fluencies in the range of 1 × 10¹² to 1 × 10¹³ ions/cm² on the morphological, structural and optical properties of polycrystalline thin films of Ga₁₀Se_90-xAl_x (x = 0, 5). Thin films of ~300 nm thickness were deposited on cleaned Al₂O₃ substrates by thermal evaporation technique. X-ray diffraction pattern of investigated thin films shows the crystallite growth occurs in hexagonal phase structure for Ga₁₀Se₉₀ and tetragonal phase structure for Ga₁₀Se₈₅Al₅. The further structural analysis carried out by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy verifies the defects or disorder of the investigated material increases after SHI irradiation. The optical parameters absorption coefficient (α), extinction coefficient (K), optical band gap (E_g) and Urbach’s energy (E_U) are determined from optical absorption spectra data measured from spectrophotometry in the wavelength range 200–1100 nm. It was found that the values of absorption coefficient and extinction coefficient increase while the value of optical band gap decreases with the increase in ion fluence. This post irradiation change in the optical parameters was interpreted in terms of bond distribution model.

Keywords:

• thin films
• chalcogenides
• swift heavy ion irradiation
• optical band gap
• Urbach’s energy

Acknowledgement

Authors are very thankful to the Department of Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, and Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi, India, for their help in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.