The role of applied magnetic field in Co-doped ZnS thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition

In recent years, chalcogenide glasses such as ZnS or ZnSe have attracted much attention due to their excellent optical properties. The structure of chalcogenide materials is part of the important factors affecting their optical properties. In this paper, the magnetic environment was set to control the growth structure of nano film in the process of deposition, which could be affected the optical properties of Co-doped ZnS (ZnS:Co) nano-film. All films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The results of XRD and Raman proved that the structure of the film was changed by the magnetic field. A broader band fluorescence characteristic in the film was shown by PL spectrum, which revealed a substantially improvement of the optical properties for this material. Under the condition of the magnetic field, consistency between FDTD (Finite difference time domain method, FDTD) simulation and experimental results further confirmed the improvement of the optical properties. The findings warrant that the optimized ZnS:Co thin films could be applied to develop efficient optical waveguide devices and laser gain media in the infrared field. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.