A comparative study of pulsed laser deposition and flash evaporation of Culn0.75Ga0.25Se2 thin films

In this paper initial results are presented for the growth and characterisation of polycrystalline Culn_0.75Ga_0.25Se₂ thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and flash evaporation. Analogies are drawn between these two important deposition technologies. The deposited films were characterised using a veriety of analytical techniques, including energy-dispersive analysis of X-rays and Rutherford-backscattering spectroscopy for compositional evaluation, X-ray diffreaction and Raman spectroscopy for structural evaluation, scanning electron microscopy for surface examination and the four-point and hot-point probe techniques for electrical characterisation. The comparison of films produced by these two deposition methods revealed that, in terms of their stochiometry, electrical and physical characteristics, good-quality GIGS thin films could be produced by both techniques.