Optical and morphological characteristics of zinc selenide-zinc sulfide solid solution crystals

Abstract Experiments were performed to study the effect of point defects on the optical and morphological characteristics of zinc selenide-zinc sulfide ZnSe-ZnS (ZnSexS(1-x)) solid solution crystals grown under terrestrial (1-g) condition. We used the composition ZnSe0.91S0.09 and ZnSe0.73S0.27 for the detailed studies. Crystals of 8 mm and 12 mm diameter were grown using physical vapor transport methods. These crystals did not exhibit gross defects such as voids, bubbles or precipitates. The photoluminescence spectra indicated strong red emission for the 610–630-nm wavelength region in both crystals. This emission could be explained on the basis of high energy irradiation of Zn selenide. For the ZnSe0.73S0.27 crystal, absorption starts at a lower wavelength range (300 nm) when compared to the ZnSe0.91S0.09 crystal presumably due to the much higher bandgap of ZnS than that of ZnSe. Sharp peaks at 451 and 455 nm were observed for both samples corresponding to the band edge transitions, followed by a strong peak at 632 nm. These results were consistent with the observations based on Raman spectroscopy studies. Under 532-nm laser illumination both transverse optical (TO) and longitudinal optical (LO) phonon peaks appeared at Raman shifts of 220 and 280 Δcm−1, respectively. These peaks are similar to those observed for pure ZnSe Raman spectra for which TO and LO occur at 200 and 250 Δcm−1 for the x-axis (first order) polarization.