The effect of crystalline structure on photoluminescence of the β- FeSi2 film prepared by pulsed laser deposition using two types of target

Ecological friendly β- FeSi2 thin film has been formed on FZ-Si (111) substrates using sintered FeSi2 (purity 99.99%) and electrolytic Fe (purity 99.99%) targets by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method in an ArF () excimer laser. Subsequently the prepared thin films were annealed at 900oC. Cross sectional transmission electron microscope (TEM) results confirmed that the epitaxial growth of the β- FeSi2 on the thin films and the crystalline structure was improved after increasing the annealing time 5 to 20 hrs ranges using two types of target. It was also showed the polycrystalline structure and the thicknesses of the thin films were 80 to 100 nm for FeSi2 target and 200 to 250 nm for Fe target. The TEM result was also confirmed by electron diffraction (ED) method. The intrinsic photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the A-band peak from 20 hrs annealed sample was investigated. A-band peak was considered as the intrinsic band peak because there are another defect related peaks also investigated from the thin films. We report on the effect of the crystalline structure (ECS), luminescence characteristics and band structure condition to apply in solar cell and optical fiber communications.