ZINC-SULFIDE THIN-FILMS DOPED WITH RARE-EARTH IONS

Zinc sulfide thin films doped with trivalent rare earths (cerium, europium, terbium, thulium) have been grown by the atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) method using hydrogen sulfide and zinc chloride or acetate as starting materials and rare earth beta -diketonates as dopants. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence techniques and their photoluminescence was studied. It is possible by ALE to grow thin films of good quality and to control the distribution of the rare earth ions in the ZnS matrix. The most intense luminescence was obtained with Ce**3** plus and Tb**3** plus . Europium also gave a distinct luminescence while that of thulium remained poor. This work is of interest to multicolor thin film electroluminescent devices.