Nanotemplated lead telluride thin films

Direct lyotropic liquid crystalline templating has been successfully applied to produce nanostructured IV–VI semiconductor PbTe thin films by electrodeposition both on gold and n-type (1 0 0) silicon substrates. The PbTe films were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and polarized optical microscopy and the results show that the films have a regular hexagonal nanoarchitecture with a high crystalline rock salt structure and exhibit strong birefringence. The optical absorption measurements using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy show that the nanostructured PbTe films have a direct band gap of 0.37 eV.