GROWTH OF AgInSe2 ON Si(100) SUBSTRATE BY PULSE LASER ABLATION

Laser ablation has attracted special interest for the growth of thin films. It allows the formation of high quality layers and maintain stoichiometry in the films of even very complex elemental materials. In this work, high quality AgInSe2 (AIS) films were grown onto Si(100) substrates kept at different temperatures using ultra high vacuum pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique from the AIS target synthesized from high-purity materials. It has been observed that compositional stoichiometry is largely maintained in the films. This suggests that PLD could be used as technique for fabrication of ternary semi-conducting films. The X-ray diffraction studies of the films show that films are textured in (112) direction. The structural and optical properties have been investigated as a function of substrate temperature. An increase in substrate temperature results in a more ordered structure. Roughness of the films is found to increase at higher deposition temperatures. The optical studies of the films show that the optical band gap lies in the range 1.20–1.27 eV.