Dispensability of the conventional Tauc’s plot for accurate bandgap determination from UV–vis optical diffuse reflectance data

•Dispensability of the conventional Tauc’s plot is described in the present report.•Two other relatively simple methods for optical bandgap estimation are described.•The step-by-step approach leading to the correct Tauc’s plot is described.•The UV–vis optical spectra of β-Ga2O3, ZnO and TiO2 films are used for the study. The use of the conventional Tauc’s method to determine optical bandgap energy from UV–vis spectroscopy data has been overemphasized for decades. However, a misuse of the Tauc’s formula in conjunction with the Kubelka-Munk function to determine the bandgap energy of semiconductors from diffuse reflectance data can lead to erroneous estimates. Particularly, large errors can be associated with computing values of the ordinate using the Tauc-Kubelka-Munk relationship for diffuse reflectance to produce Tauc’s plot. To address this apparent error, the present paper shows that the reflectance versus photon energy plot for bandgap estimation from UV–vis diffuse reflectance data can be employed to obtain reasonable bandgap values, suggesting that the conventional Tauc’s plot is not indispensable for accurate bandgap energy determination. The relatively simple method can be best choice when a researcher is unsure about the accurate computations from diffuse reflectance data which lead to proper Tauc’s plot. Interestingly, the rarely reported (if at all it can be found elsewhere) step-by-step approach to Tauc’s plot from diffuse reflectance data is described in this paper to serve as a simple guide for emerging material scientists. The UV–vis optical diffuse reflectance data for β-Ga2O3, ZnO and TiO2 semiconductor films are used for this study.