Investigation of optical parameters of Ag–In–Se thin films deposited by e-beam technique

The optical properties of the Ag–In–Se (AIS) thin films deposited by e-beam technique were investigated by means of the optical transmittance measurements. The optical absorption coefficients of the films were found to vary from 103103 to 105105 cm−1 over the wavelength range of 300–1100 nm. The real and imaginary parts of the refractive index and dielectric constant for the as-grown and annealed films in between 100 and 400 °C were evaluated by means of both envelope method (EM) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) method and the results were in quite good agreement with each other. The refractive index, n  , dispersion over the measured wavelength range was explained by applying single-oscillator model (SOM) and the related parameters were calculated. The optical absorption process for the AIS thin films was characterized by three direct transitions from three closely spaced valence bands to a single conduction band due to the splitting of the valence band under the influence of the tetragonal crystalline field and spin–orbit interaction. The direct optical band gap energy decreases as the annealing temperature increases because of the increase in the width of band tail states near valence-band edge caused by the Se segregation. The two distinct parameters of the quasicubic model; crystal-field splitting, ΔCFΔCF, and spin–orbit splitting, ΔSOΔSO, were calculated for as-grown and annealed AIS thin films.