Thin Chalcogenide Films for Photonic Applications

Abstract

Chalcogenide glasses and their propertiesThe term "chalcogen" -meaning "ore former" (from "chalcos" old Greek for "ore") -is a characteristic name that was proposed by Fischer in 1932 to refer to the group of elements O, S, Se, and Te (Fischer, 2001)."Chalcogenides" is used to address chalcogen's compounds with elements such as As (arsenic), Ag (silver), Bi (bismuth), Cu (copper), Cd (cadmium), Fe www.intechopen.comPhotonic Crystals -Innovative Systems, Lasers and Waveguides 144 (iron), Ga (gallium), Ge (germanium), In (indium), Pb (lead), Na (sodium), Sb (antimony), Si (silicon), Sn (tin), Tl (thallium), Zn (zinc), etc.As suggested by the above variety of elements entering in the formation of the chalcogenide glassy alloys, chalcogenides offer wide range of variation in their properties -e.g., in their index of refraction and optical band gap, as seen in the figure below.It is seen that the refractive index could be freely varied with the composition in 2 -3.6 range and the optical band-gap from 1.5 to nearly 2.8 eV.2,0 2,2 2,4 2,6 2,8 3,0 3,2 3,4 3,6As-S-Se-Ge Ge