Effect of annealing on the optical properties of In2Te3 thin films

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Te₃ thin films of different thickness were prepared in a vacuum of 10^-5 Torr onto glass and quartz substrates held at about 300 K during the deposition process. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the prepared samples in bulk or as-deposited thin-film forms were in an amorphous state. On annealing at 573 K, films have a β-phase polycrystalline structure. Transmittance and reflectance measurements in the spectral range of 400–2500 nm for films deposited onto quartz substrates were used to calculate the optical constants (the refractive index n, the absorption index k and the absorption coefficient α) for In₂Te₃ films, either as-deposited or annealed at different temperatures. The refractive index has anomalous behavior in the region of the fundamental absorption edge. The allowed optical transitions were found to be nondirect transitions, with an optical gap of 1.02 eV for the samples under test. The effect of annealing on the optical gap is interpreted in terms of the density of states proposed by Mott and Davis.