Tailoring of morphology and microstructure dependent optical properties of solution processed Ge23Sb7S70 chalcogenide glass films

This paper presents an extensive study carried out to understand the process of tailoring the morphology of solution processed nanostructured Ge23Sb7S70 Chalcogenide glass thin films and to analyze their microstructure dependent optical properties. To tailor the desired morphology of the solution processed ChG films different synthesis parameters have been optimized, step by step. It has been observed that the dissolution time and concentration of Chalcogenide glass precursor solution used for the deposition of solution processed films have the major role in determining their morphology. Annealing of solution processed chalcogenide glass film is an important step to get rid of residual solvent from the film. This study reveals that annealing may disturb the morphological uniformity of solution processed chalcogenide glass films and a careful optimization of annealing step is required to maintain the morphological uniformity. Microstructure dependent optical properties such as refractive index and optical bandgap of solution processed chalcogenide glass films have also been analyzed in this study. It has been observed the size of the microstructures insolution processed chalcogenide glass films greatly influences the optical properties of these films.