Effect of SHI irradiation on structural, surface morphological and optical studies of CVT grown ZnSSe single crystals

• CVT grown ZnSSe single crystals were irradiated with 120 MeV Au ion.
• The GIXRD results show the FWHM increases with increasing ion fluency.
• The AFM study show the surface roughness increases with ion fluency.
• The optical band gap energy vary with increasing ion fluency.
• The PL emission decreases with increasing ion fluency.

The ZnSSe single crystals grown by chemical vapour transport (CVT) method have been irradiated by 120 MeV Au9+ ions at room temperature with fluences of 1 × 1012 and 5 × 1012 ions/cm2. The grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) results show that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) value for the as grown ZnSSe crystal is 0.215°; and for the irradiated samples, the FWHM values are 0.413° and 0.625°, with the increase of ion fluences. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies reveal the formation of the pits and islands due to irradiation. The optical absorption cut off wavelength is found to be 441 nm for as grown ZnSSe crystal. The cut off values are increased to 447 nm and 457 nm for the irradiated samples with increasing ion fluency. The photoluminescence studies show the emission for the as grown ZnSSe is 590 nm whereas for the irradiated samples in the emission range it is 580–590 nm and 575–595 nm due to SHI irradiation. FT-Raman spectra analysis has been made for the ZnSSe single crystals and irradiated samples. The results are discussed in detail.