Physics based optical modeling of iron disulfide thin films

In this work, physics based optical modeling is carried out using iron disulfide thin films deposited by using a plasma-assisted, radio frequency-powered technique. Iron disulfide is a transition metal dichalcogenide material, exhibiting a variety of unique and excellent characteristics. Various characterization techniques are employed to examine the growth rate, film thickness, and behavior of as-grown iron disulfide thin films. Furthermore, the physics based optical modeling was performed using a combination of experimental techniques and computer modeling approaches. The analyzed thin films exhibit a bandgap of around 1.16 eV. The theoretically calculated values of absorbance, transmission, and reflectance show a good match with the experimental measurements. Moreover, a physics based optical model is developed based on the experimental data and is used to calculate the external quantum efficiency and the optically generated current density of the iron disulfide films to provide insight into its use as an absorber layer.