Structural and optical properties of thermally evaporated thin films

Chalcogenide glass Se₅₅Ge₃₀As₁₅ have amorphous structure in both as-deposited and annealed conditions. The optical properties of the as-deposited and annealed films were studied using spectrophotometric measurements of transmittance, T(λ), and reflectance, R(λ), at normal incidence of light in the wavelength range 200–2500 nm. Neither annealing temperature nor film thickness can influence spectral response on refractive index and absorption index of films. The type of electronic transition responsible for optical properties is indirectly allowed transition with energy gap of 1.94 eV and phonon energy of 40 meV. The dispersion of the refractive index is discussed in terms of the single oscillator Wemple–Didomenico (WD) model. The width of band tails of localized states into the gap (ΔE), the single oscillator energy (E_o), the dispersion energy (E_d), the optical dielectric constant (ε_∞), the lattice dielectric constant (ε_L), the plasma frequency (ω_p) and the free charge carrier concentration (N) were estimated.