Abstract
The optical properties of ZnTe epilayers grown by low-pressure metal organic vapour phase epitaxy on GaAs and GaSb substrates are studied. The layers are grown by using the halide-free triethylamine dimethylzinc adduct and di-isopropyl telluride as zinc and tellurium precursors, respectively. A detailed analysis of the residual strain is offered as a function of layer thickness and substrate nature via reflectivity measurements performed at pumped liquid helium temperature. This is completed by an extensive analysis of near-band-edge photoluminescence spectra in order to discriminate the contribution of residual impurities. Using these precursors ZnTe layers with extremely low contamination rates are obtained.