Optical properties and electrical conductivity studies of copper selenide nanoparticle

In this work, the optical properties were studied in the UV–VIS range for copper selenide nanoparticle prepared at 160, 170 and 200 °C by solvothermal route using ethylenediamine as a solvent. Sharp absorption bands were observed at shorter wavelength due to the confinement of electrons and holes in low dimensional system producing excitonic and Coulombic attraction. The binding energy and the optical band gap were determined and the two values were found to decrease with increasing temperature and decreasing grain size. DC electrical conductivities were measured with temperature and the activation energy was calculated. The obtained data indicated that, the prepared samples behave as a semiconductor material.