The photoluminescence of ZnSe bulk single crystals excited by femtosecond pulse

This paper reports on the photoluminescence spectra of ZnSe single crystal with trace chlorine excited by the femtosecond laser pulse. Three emission bands, including second-harmonic-generation, two-photon-excited peak and a broad band at 500--700nm, were detected. The thermal strain induced by femtosecond pulse strongly influences the photoluminescence of ZnSe crystal. The corresponding strain \varepsilon in ZnSe crystal is estimated to be about 8.8\times10^-3 at room temperature. The zinc-vacancy, as the main point defect induced by femtosecond pulse, is successfully used to interpret the broad emission at 500--700nm. The research shows that self-activated luminescence possesses the recombination mechanism of donor--vacancy pair, and it is also influenced by a few selenium defects and the temperature. The rapid decrease in photoluminescence intensity of two-photon-excited fluorescence and second-harmonic generation emission at lower temperature is attributed to the fact that more point defects result in the thermal activation of the two-photo-absorption energy converting to the stronger recombination emission of chlorine--zinc vacancy in 500--700nm. The experimental results indicate that the femtosecond exciting photoluminescence shows a completely different emission mechanism to that of He--Cd exciting luminescence in ZnSe single crystal. The femtosecond laser exhibits a higher sensitive to the impurity in crystal materials, which can be recommended as an efficient way to estimate the trace impurity in high quality crystals.