Infrared properties of AgGaTe2, a nonlinear optical chalcopyrite semiconductor

The fundamental optical properties of AgGaTe2, a nonlinear optical semiconductor are reported. These properties include birefringence, indices of refraction, infrared transmission, and the temperature dependence of the band gap. The average index for wavelengths greater than several microns was found to be 3.0. The birefringence was found to be rather large and to range from a near band edge value of 0.038 at 1.3 μm to a value of 0.017 at 15 μm. Additionally, native defect related sub-bandgap absorption, photoluminescence, and electrical transport have been studied in these nominally undoped p-type crystals. An activation energy associated with these defects was determined to be 0.3 eV and the corresponding photoluminescence and absorption data showed, respectively, a broad asymmetric emission band centered at 0.8 eV and two bands at 0.95 and 1.01 eV, the absorption band at 0.95 eV being the most intense. The measured properties were utilized to assess the potential of AgGaTe2 for the wavelength conversion processes of second-harmonic generation and degenerate optical parametric oscillation. It was found that AgGaTe2 will not phase match at room temperature. However, it is estimated that mixed crystals of the form AgGa(Se(1−x))Tex)2 for a Te addition of 19% can exceed the conversion efficiency of AgGaSe2 by more than 100%.