Structural investigation shows that all Cd3As2 thin films, whatever th
eir film thickness in the range of 50.5-200 nm and whatever their depo
sition rate up to 5 nm s(-1), have a polycrystalline nature and a tetr
agonal structure belonging to the alpha-phase. Dark electrical resisti
vity p, Hall coefficient R(H) and Seebeck coefficient S measurements i
ndicate that Cd3As2 films in polycrystalline form behave as a degenera
te semiconductor. The sign of both R(H) and S shows that these films a
re n-type semiconductors. The Seebeck coefficient measurements lead to
the existing conduction mechanisms as they show throughout the graphi
cal representation of S vs 1000/T that there are two different mechani
sms which are the ionized scattering mechanism (predominant at lower t
emperature range up to 150 K) and lattice scattering mechanism (predom
inant at relatively higher temperatures, i.e. above 250 K). The graphi
cal representation of S vs 1000/T was used in conjunction with the opt
ical energy gap of Cd3As2 films in polycrystalline form to show that m
u n > mu p which is characteristic of most semiconducting materials. T
he electron concentration calculated from R(H) in conjunction with the
reduced Fermi energy calculated from S was used to determine the elec
tron effective mass m of Cd3As2 crystalline thin films. it was found
that m = 0.053 m(0).