OPTICAL-PROPERTIES OF OXYGENATED AMORPHOUS CADMIUM TELLURIDE THIN-FILMS

Oxygenated cadmium telluride (CdTe:O) thin films are prepared by radio -frequency (RF) sputtering from a polycrystalline CdTe target in an at mosphere composed of a mixture of argon, nitrogen and oxygen gases. X- ray diffraction analysis showed that as-deposited films are amorphous when deposited in the presence of nitrogen. X-ray photoelectron spectr oscopy analysis revealed that the layers do not contain any nitrogen w hile the chemical composition of the films depends strongly on the par tial pressure of N-2 used during sputtering. Finally, optical transmis sion measurements in the IR-Visible region showed that the optical con stants of the samples vary considerably with their oxygen contents. X- ray reflectometry studies enabled us to correlate some of these variat ions with the density of the layers.