Photoreflectance spectroscopy of BiOCl epitaxial thin films

Abstract: We have observed a new optical transition in the photoreflectance spectra of indirect-gap BiOCl thin films, which were grown on SrTiO$_3$ substrates. The position of this transition is close in energy to its bulk critical point energy. Moreover, these are significantly lower than a higher-lying direct-type critical point from an energetic point of view. The spectral line shape analysis for our observed signal suggests the presence of an excitonic effect of this compound. We determined its dependence of the optical anomaly on temperature ranging from 80 K to room temperature. We adopted the Varshni model for this analysis. At last, we compared phononic properties of BiOCl with those of an element and binary semiconductors.