Temperature effect on properties of chemical induced nanocrystalline ZnSe thin films

Chemical bath deposition method has been successfully employed for depositing ZnSe thin films at different temperature ranges from 298 to 353 K. The technique used to investigate structural, optical and electrical properties of these films have been X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical absorption and conductivity measurements. The X-ray diffraction study reveals the cubic structure of the ZnSe films oriented along the (111) direction at all temperatures ranges from 298 to 353 K. The structural parameters such as particle size, strain, dislocation density and number of crystallites are evaluated. Optical measurements has been done using UV spectra and optical energy gap was evaluated in the range of 2.82–3.04 eV at different temperature. The dark conductivity (σ_d) and photoconductivity (σ_ph) measurements at different temperature range indicates that the conduction in these materials is through an activated process having single activation energies and both σ_d and σ_ph values varies with the temperature. The values of carrier life time and trap depth have also been calculated.