Growth of cubic and hexagonal CdTe thin films by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract The paper reports the growth of cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using excimer laser (KrF, λ =248 nm, 10 Hz) on corning 7059 glass and SnO 2 -coated glass (SnO 2 /glass) substrates at different substrate temperatures ( T s ) and at different laser energy pulses. Single crystal target CdTe was used for deposition of thin films. With 30 min deposition time, 1.8- to ∼3-μm-thick films were obtained up to 200 °C substrate temperature. However, the film re-evaporates from the substrate surface at temperatures >275 °C. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) shows an average grain size ∼0.3 μm. X-ray diffraction analysis confirms the formation of CdTe cubic phase at all pulse energies except at 200 mJ. At 200 mJ laser energy, the films show hexagonal phase. Optical properties of CdTe were also investigated and the band gap of CdTe films were found as 1.54 eV for hexagonal phase and ∼1.6 eV for cubic phase.