A comparative study on the electronic and optical properties of Sb2Se3 thin film

The thin film of Sb2Se3 was deposited by thermal evaporation method and the film was annealed in N2 flow in a three zone furnace at a temperature of 290°С for 30 min. The structural properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (ТЕМ), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. It is seen that the as-deposited film is amorphous and the annealed film is polycrystalline in nature. The surface of Sb2Se3 film is oxidized with a thickness of 1.15 nm investigated by X-ray photolecetron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and UV–vis spectroscopy measurements were carried out to study the optical properties of Sb2Se3 film. In addition, the first principles calculations were applied to study the electronic and optical properties of Sb2Se3. From the theoretical calculation it is seen that Sb2Se3 is intrinsically an indirect band gap semiconductor. Importantly, the experimental band gap is in good agreement with the theoretical band gap. Furthermore, the experimental values of n, k, ε1, and ε2 are much closer to the theoretical results. However, the obtained large dielectric constants and refractive index values suggest that exciton binding energy in Sb2Se3 should be relatively small and an antireflective coating is recommended to enhance the light absorption of Sb2Se3 for thin film solar cells application.