Effects of metal doping on the physical properties of ZnTe thin films

• Zinc telluride thin films were grown by closed space sublimation technique.
• Cu and Ag was doped, by ion exchange process.
• Physical properties were investigated before and after Cu and Ag doping.

Zinc telluride (ZnTe) thin films were sublimated on a glass substrate using closed space sublimation (CSS) technique. ZnTe thin films of same thickness were tailored with copper (Cu) & silver (Ag) doping, considered for comparative study. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of as-deposited ZnTe thin film and doped ZnTe samples exhibited polycrystalline behavior. The preferred orientation of (111) having cubic phase was observed. XRD patterns indicated that the crystallite size had increased after silver and copper immersion in as-deposited ZnTe thin films. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the change of as-deposited and doped sample's grains sizes. EDX confirmed the presence of Cu and Ag in the ZnTe thin films after doping respectively. The optical studies showed the decreasing trend in energy band gap after Cu and Ag-doping. Transmission also decreased after doping. Resistivity of as-deposited ZnTe thin film was about 106 Ω cm. The resistivity was reduced to 68.97 Ω cm after Cu immersion, and 104 Ω cm after Ag immersion. Raman spectra were used to check the crystallinity of as-deposited, Cu and Ag-doped ZnTe thin film samples.