Open Access

Investigation on Thickness Dependent Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Cadmium Selenide Thin Films Deposited via Thermal Process

Dhaneswar Kalita, dhaneswarkalita2011@gmail.com
Department of Physics, Barama College, Barama, AS, India
P. K. Mochahari mochaharip@gmail.com
Department of Physics, Bodoland University, Kokrajhar, AS, India
ORCID



J. Environ. Nanotechnol., Volume 14, No 3 (September 2025) pp. 364-370

https://doi.org/10.13074/jent.2025.09.2531675

PDF


Abstract

Nanocrystalline CdSe thin films of various thicknesses have been deposited on cleaned glass substrates using thermal vacuum evaporation technique at substrate temperature of 333K. The effect of thickness on the structural, optical, dielectric, and electrical properties of CdSe thin films has been studied. Structural studies using an X-ray diffractometer (XRD) reveal that the deposited samples are polycrystalline. Optical investigation using ultraviolet visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy shows that the films exhibit direct allowed electronic transitions, and the optical absorptions are found to shift towards lower energies with increasing thickness. The optical energy band gap (Eg) decreases from 2.36 eV to 2.12 eV as the sample thickness increases, attributed to the rise in the grain size of the CdSe nanoparticles. The fundamental dielectric constant decreases with an increase in film thickness, and the imaginary dielectric constant increases with increase in film thickness. The increase of photonic energy increases both real and imaginary dielectric constants. External illuminating radiation generates photocarriers that interact with the grain boundary state and reduce potential barrier.

Full Text

Reference


Baban, C., Caraman, M., RuSu, G. I., Electronic transport and photoconductivity of polycrystalline CdSe thin films. J. Opto electron. Adv. Mater., 8(3), 917 – 921 (2006).

Baban, C., Rusu, G. I. and Prepelita, P., On the optical properties of polycrystalline CdSe thin films, J. Opto electron. Adv. Mater., 7(2), 817 – 821(2005).

Bube, R.H., Photoconductivity of solid, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 230 (1960).

Cachet, H., Cortes, R., Froment, M. and Etcheberry, A., Electrodeposition of epitaxial CdSe on (111) galli-um arsenide, Thin Solid Films., 361-362, 84– 87 (2000).

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-6090(99)00773-7

Cai, W., Shin, D. W., Chen, K., Gheysens, O., Cao, Q., Wang, S. X., Gambhir, S. S. and Chen, X., Peptide-Labeled Near-Infrared Quantum Dots for Imaging Tumor Vasculature in Living Subjects, Nano lett., 6(4), 669– 676 (2006).

https://doi.org/10.1021/nl052405t

Chopra, K. L., Thin Film Phenomena, Sci., 169, 850– 850 (1969).

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.169.3948.850.a

Choudhary, R. and Chouhan, R.P., Thickness dependent variation in structural, optical and electrical proper-ties of CdSe thin films, J. Mat. Science: Mat. Elec-tronics., 30(6), 5753– 5759 (2019).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-019-00870-8

Das, T.K., Ilaiyaraja, P. and Sudakar, C., Whispering Gallery Mode Enabled Efficiency Enhancement: Defect and Size Controlled CdSe Quantum Dot Sen-sitized Whisperonic Solar Cells, Sci. Rep., 8, 9709 (2018).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27969-y

Dhanam, M., Prabhu, R. R. and Manoj, P. K., Investiga-tions on chemical bath deposited cadmium selenide thin films, Mater. Chem. Phys., 107 (2-3), 289– 296 (2008).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2007.07.011

Hodes, G., Chemical Solution Deposition of Semicon-ductor films, 1st Ed., CRC Press, 1– 388 (2002).

https://doi.org/10.1201/9780203909096

Inbanathan, F. P. N., Kumar, P., Dasari, K., Katiyar, R. S., Chen, J. and Jadwisienczak, W. M., Ellipsometry Study of CdSe Thin Films Deposited by PLD on ITO Coated Glass Substrates, Mater., 14 (12), 3307 (2021).

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14123307

Kazmerski, L. L., Polycrystalline and Amorphous Thin Films and devices, Academic Press, 1-304 (1980).

Li, K., Lin, X., Son, B., Kondrotas, R., Wang, C., Lu, Y., Yang, X., Chen, C. and Tang, J., Rapid thermal evaporation for cadmium selenide thin-film solar cells, Front. Optoelectron., 14 (4), 482– 490 (2021).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-021-1217-1

Lucas, P., Measurement of Optical Properties of Solids, Encyclopedia of Modern Optics, Elsevier, 1–8 (2004).

Mahato, S. and Kar, A. K., Structural, optical and elec-trical properties of electrodeposited cadmium sele-nide thin films for applications in photodetector and photoelectrochemical cell, J. Electroanal. Chem., 742, 23– 29 (2015).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelechem.2015.01.034

Mort, J. and Pai, D. M., Photoconductivity and related Phenomena, Elsevier,1-502 (1976).

Nair, M. T. S., Nair, P. K., Zingaro, R. A. and Meyers, E. A., Enhancement of photosensitivity in chemically deposited CdSe thin films by air annealing, J. Appl. Phys., 74 (3), 1879– 1884 (1993).

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.354796

Nasir, E. M., Lamy, H. K.A. and Ameer, H. J. A., Optical properties of CdSe films at different thickness and annealing temperatures, Chalcogenide Lett., 16, 485– 497 (2019).

Natori, K., Otani, D. and Sano, N., Thickness depend-ence of the effective dielectric constant in a thin film capacitor, Appl. Phys. Lett., 73 (5), 632– 634 (1998).

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.121930

Nemec, P., Mikeš, D., Rohovec, J., Uhlı́řová, E., Tro-jánek, F. and Malýet, P., Light-controlled growth of CdSe nanocrystalline films prepared by chemical deposition, Mater. Sci. Eng. B., 69-70, 500– 504 (2000).

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-5107(99)00284-6

Olusola, O. I., Echendu, O. K. and Dharmadasa, I. M., Development of CdSe thin films for application in electronic devices, J. Mater Sci: Mater. Electron., 26 (2), 1066– 1076 (2015).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-014-2506-x

Pankove, J. I., Optical processes in Semiconductors, Prentice Hall, 1-422 (1971).

Park, J. H., Kim, J. Y., Chin, B. D., Kim, Y. C., Kim, J. K. and Park, O. O., White emission from poly-mer/quantum dot ternary nanocomposites by in-complete energy transfer, Nanotechnol., 15 (9), 1217 (2004).

https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-4484/15/9/018

Perez, M. A. H., Hernandez, J. A., Puente, G.C., García, J. R. V. and Salinas, E.R., Comparative optical and structural studies of CdSe films grown by chemical bath deposition and pulsed laser deposition, Physi-ca E., 40 (7), 2535–2539 (2008).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physe.2007.10.102

Petriz, R.L., Theory of Photoconductivity in Semicon-ductor Films, Phys. Rev., 104 (6), 1508–1516 (1956).

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.104.1508

Ramaiah, K. S., Su, Y. K., Chang, S. J., Juang, F. S., Ohdaira, K., Shiraki, Y., Liu, H. P., Chen, I. G., Bhatnagar, A. K., Characterization of Cu doped CdSe thin films grown by vacuum evaporation, J. Cryst. Growt., 224 (1-2), 74– 82 (2001).

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-0248(01)00697-2

Rouleau, C. M. and Lowndes, D. H., Growth of p-type ZnTe and n-type CdSe films on GaAs(001) by pulsed laser ablation, Appl. Surf. Sci., 127-129, 418– 424 (1998).

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-4332(97)00666-1

Sachdeva, M., Agrawal, P., Sachdeva, S., Bhasin, K. K., Tripathi, S. K. and Gulati, S., Synthetic Route of CdSe Nanocrystalline Films Fabricated by Substrate Vibration Assisted Drop Casting Method, Adv. Sci. Eng. Med., 12(6), 761– 770 (2020).

https://doi.org/10.1166/asem.2020.2620

Sadekar, H. K., Ghule, A. V. and Sharma, R., Fabrication of CdSe Thin Film for Photosensor Applica-tions, Int. J. Innovations Eng. Technol., 5(1), 35– 41 (2015).

Sarma, K.C. and Das, H.L., Effect of substrate tempera-ture on photoconductivity in CdTe thin films, Thin Solid Films., 198, 29–34 (1991).

https://doi.org/10.1016/0040-6090(91)90321-N

Sharma, J., Singh, R., Kumar, A., Singh, T., Agrawal, P., Thakur, A., Size-controlled synthesis of nanocrystal-line CdSe thin films by inert gas condensation, Appl. Nanosci., 8(3), 359–367 (2018).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-018-0683-2

Sharma, K., Saini, G. S. S. and Tripathi, S. K., Transient photoconductivity measurements of In-doped CdSe thin films, AIP Conf. Proc. 1675, 030079 (2015),

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4929295

Shreekanthan, K. N., Rajendra, B. V., Kasturi, V. B. and Shivakumar, G. K., Growth and characterization of semiconducting cadmium selenide thin films, Cryst. Res. Technol., 38(1), 30–33 (2003).

https://doi.org/10.1002/crat.200310003

Tauc, J., Optical properties of Solid, North-Holland Publishing, 279 (1972).

Tolansky, S., Surface Microtopography, Interscience Publishers, Inc, 65–66 (1960).

Wang, L. W. and Zunger, A., Pseudopotential calcula-tions of nanoscale CdSe quantum dots, Phys. Rev. B., 53(15), 9579–9582 (1996).

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.53.9579

Woggon, U., Optical Properties of Semiconductor Quan-tum Dots, Springer Berlin Heidelberg,1–251 (1997).

Zubair, M. A., Chowdhury, M. T., Bashar, M. S., Sami, M. A. and Islam, M. F., Thickness dependent corre-lation between structural and optical properties of textured CdSe thin film, AIP Adv., 9(4), 045123 (2019).

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5096594

Powered by

Powered by OJS