Growth and characterization of zinc sulfide films by conversion of zinc oxide films with H2S

Zinc sulfide is an IR window material and a transparent semiconductor with a large direct band gap. It also possesses piezoelectric, photoconductive and electroluminescent properties. Thin films of zinc sulfide can be utilized for infrared antireflection coatings, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), electroluminescent (EL) displays, multilayer dielectric filters, optical phase modulation and light guiding in integrated optics. In recent years, there was a large effort directed at the growth of high quality films of ZnS. Various fabrication techniques were employed, such as ion beam epitaxy sputtering atomic layer epitaxy (ALE), molecular beam (MBE), metal-organic chemical vapor deposition and spray pyrolysis. Zinc sulfide films were prepared by conversion of zinc oxide films in the presence of hydrogen sulfide. The films which contained both the hexagonal and cubic forms of zinc sulfide were shown to be uniform and gave a measured band gap of 3.65 eV.