Investigation of the optical properties of monocrystalline silicon with a deposited layer of spherical zinc sulfide nanoparticles

In the present work zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized on silicon wafer by femtosecond pulsed ablation processing of ZnS bulk target using an electrostatic field in argon gas atmosphere. The morphology, size distribution and structural characterization of obtained ZnS NPs were investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Dominant size of obtained NPs lies in the range 10-20 nm, NPs are in spherical shape, particles of other shape and agglomerates of particles are absent. XRD investigation of synthesized NPs identified hexagonal wurtzite structure. There is a structural phase transition from the sphalerite ZnS bulk (target) structure to the structural phase of wurtzite (obtained NPs).The optical characterization of synthesized by laser ablation ZnS NPs was carried out using a photoluminescence (PL) measurement. ZnS NPs show a strong broad PL emission spectra covering the entire visible electromagnetic spectra region (range from 380 to 800 nm) centered at 513.7 nm.