A photoluminescence comparison of CdTe thin films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, and sputtering in ultrahigh vacuum

Abstract

High perfection CdTe thin films have been grown on (001) InSb and CdTe substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and sputtering in ultrahigh vacuum techniques. The quality of the as-grown CdTe films are characterized by 2-K photoluminescence. The spectra show strong and sharp exciton transitions and weak 1.40–1.50-eV defect-related bands. Radiative defect densities of lower than 0.002 are realized. High-resolution spectroscopy shows that the full width at half maximum of the principal bound exciton lines is about 0.1 meV. Such small ρ values and narrow photoluminescence lines have not been previously reported. The largest luminescence efficiency is observed for MOCVD-CdTe films grown on CdTe substrates. A variety of impurities appear to be responsible for the observed radiative transitions in these three kinds of CdTe films. We attempt to assign the observed impurity related lines by a comparison with ‘‘known’’ impurities in bulk CdTe spectra given in the literature.