Development of Electrodeposited ZnTe Thin Films in Non-Aqueous Medium

Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) is a binary II-VI direct band gap semiconducting material. In this study, Zinc telluride (ZnTe) thin films were deposited on nickel substrate by electrodeposition technique using potentiostat/galvanostat at -0.85 V using AR grade of Zinc Chloride (ZnCl2), Tellurium Tetrachloride (TeCl4) in nonaqueous bath. The developed films were physically stable and shows good adhesion. The solid state properties and optical properties of the as deposited films were carried out by XRD, EDS, SEM, AFM, UV-visible spectrophotometer, and photoluminescence spectrophotometer. The diffraction peak observed at 2 theta = 49.58 degrees indicate the crystalline nature of ZnTe film. Compositional analysis reveals the presence of Zn and Te with tellurium rich ZnTe film. SEM photograph at 10000x shows that grains of film are spherical in nature and densely distributed over the surface. The average roughness of the film is measured by atomic force microscopy. The direct wide band gap of 2.12 eV is observed by UV-Visible spectroscopy. Luminescence peak of the ZnTe films are also observed.