Thickness effect on the band gap of magnetron sputtered Pb45Se45O10 thin films on Si

•Oxygen doped PbSe films were grown on Si (100) using magnetron sputtering.•The band gap of doped PbSe films decreased from 0.278 to 0.21 eV.•The band gap increased almost linearly with the lattice constant.•The change rate between the light and dark resistance increased to 64.76%.

Oxygen doped PbSe thin films with different thickness were grown on the Si (100) substrates by magnetron sputtering, and characterized using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and physical properties measurement system. As the film thickness increased, the intensity of the (200) PbSe prominent diffraction peak increased, while the (220) peak almost vanished, indicating the primary growth direction. The change rate between the light and dark resistance increased with the film thickness, and the maximum of 64.76% was obtained. According to the density functional theory calculations and the experimental results, the band gap of the PbSe thin films decreased from 0.278 eV to 0.21 eV when doped with oxygen. Doping with oxygen during the deposition process is a viable way to prepare PbSe thin films with a tunable band gap. The band gap increased almost linearly with the lattice constant, confirmed by the calculated and experimental results.