Chalcogenide Letters Vol. 5, No. 4, April 2008, p. 73 - 78 DEPENDENCE OF BAND GAP ON DEPOSITION PARAMETERS IN CdSe SINTERED FILMS Sachin K. Sharma a* , Lokendra Kumar b , Sushil Kumar c , T. P. Sharma d a Department of Physics, D. A. V. College, Muzaffar Nagar-251001, India. b Department of Physics, University of Allahabad, Allahabad-211002, India c Department of Physics, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa-125055, India. d Department of Physics, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur-302004, India. II-VI semiconductors form an important class of opto-electronic materials. CdSe is a promising material for the fabrication of photovoltaic devices. Polycrystalline CdSe films have been deposited onto ultra clean glass substrates by sintering process. The optical band gap of these films was determined by reflectance measurements in wavelength range 400-850 nm. The band gap of these films was observed to increase with increase in sintering temperature and sintering time separately. The crystal structure and lattice parameter of these films were determined from x-ray diffractograms. The films were polycrystalline in nature having cubic zinc blende structure. (Received March 24, 2008; accepted April2, 2008) Keywords: Sintering, reflection spectra, band gap, x-ray diffractogram, grain size 1. Introduction II-VI compounds in general and cadmium chalcogenides in particular have created intense scientific and technological interest. They have been investigated from the points of view of basic physics as well as of device technology for various applications. They show a high efficiency of radiative recombination, high absorption coefficients and direct band gaps corresponding to a wide spectrum of wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared regions [1-4]. Many of these semiconducting compounds form a continuous series of solid solutions that allow the physical properties to be controlled smoothly and the structural parameters to be optimized by changing their molar composition. Zn x Cd 1-x Se in thin film form has great potential in the fabrication of superlattice structures [5] and phosphor material for television screens [6]. Thin layers of CdSe x Te 1-x may effectively be used in solar control coatings on glazings of buildings in tropical climate for lowering the interior temperature [7,8]. A II B VI semiconductors have been playing a major role in opto-electronic device owing to their potential applications. This system is a promising material for opto-electronics in the far-infrared region of spectrum and for thermoelectric transducers at medium high temperature [9]. The evaluation of optical band gaps and refractive indices of semiconductors is of vital importance for the design of integrated optic devices such as switches, filters and modulators [10]. The potential of cadmium chalcogenides for low cost photovoltaic power generation has stimulated many efforts around the world to develop such devices. This development has met with many successes in higher efficiency such as device uniformity and reproducibility, large size modules fabrication of stacked junctions to exploit the solar spectrum effectively and cost reduction. CdSe is one of the prominent materials due to its near optimum direct energy gap and high absorption coefficient. It has become interesting and important (with some additives) because of its major contributions to light emitting diodes, solar cells, photodetection, light amplification, lasers, electrophotography and photo electrochemical cells [11-17]. The sintering technique, because of its less complexity and process simplicity is considered to be a versatile technique [18- 20]. The aim of present work is to study the variation of optical and structural properties with sintering temperature and time. * Corresponding author sachinksharma@rediffmail.c