Optical constants and dispersion parameters of amorphous Se65−xAs35Sbx thick films for optoelectronics

Optical properties of amorphous Se65−xAs35Sbx thin films with different compositions (x = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 at%) deposited by evaporation technique have been investigated by measuring transmission (T) and reflection (R) in the wavelength range 400–2500 nm. An optical characterization method for uniform films based on Swanepoel’s method has been employed to extract the refractive index n and film thickness d, with high precision (better than 1%). The calculated thickness for all thin films was about 1 µm. In addition, the absorption coefficient was evaluated in the strong absorption region of T and R. The possible optical transition in these films is found to be allowed indirect transition with energy gap $$E_{g}^{\text{opt}}$$ decreases from 1.72 to 1.53 eV with increasing Sb content at expense of Se. The chemical bond approach has been applied to explain the decrease of the optical gap with increasing Sb content. The dispersion and oscillator energies were analyzed using the concept of the single oscillator by Wemple and Di-Domenico. The nonlinear refractive index was calculated and found to be increase with increasing Sb content.