Optical Transmittance for Strongly-Wedge-Shaped Semiconductor Films: Appearance of Envelope-Crossover Points in Amorphous As-Based Chalcogenide Materials
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The scientific issue of this paper concerns the development of the optical transmittance envelope to the thin films optical constant determination. The method developed by Swanepoel many years ago have large applications nowadays. However, the method is valid only for films with homogeny thickness. In many cases the experimental situation is rather different that leads to which leads to incorrect values of refractive index, band gap, thicknesses of the films.
The analyses of strongly-wedge-shaped films approached to this problem is done in multiple planes, such as analytical expressions, numerical simulations, modeling and software development. The results are of high interest, are presented in high level of scientific and English language and I high recommend this paper for publications.
The only my remark is on rows 156-157, were three value are in fact four. The authors can resolves this himself, without inform me.
Conclusion: Ready for publications with minor correction.
Author Response
We appreciate the comments which have been carefully taken into consideration. Minor typo errors were indeed found and corrected in the new version of the paper.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper investigated the influence of the variable thickness of a thin film amorphous semiconductor deposited onto a transparent 1-mm-thick soda-lime-silica glass substrate, on the transmission spectrum. Spectral transmittance is used for the optical characterization of the thin film.
A MATLAB-coded computer program, called AJUSTET, was used to determine the complex refractive index of thin films deposited onto room-temperature glass substrates, based on measurements of the normal-incidence transmission spectrum.
The paper is original but the presentation must be improved.
- Bulk citations, as [1-14], are not acceptable. Try to emphasize some aspects of each research, grouping them by aim, methods, and findings.
- Taking into account that the authors already published many articles on connected subjects ([14], [27-30], and [32-33]), the Introduction section must emphasize the novelty of the paper.
- A block diagram of the entire mathematical model is requested, briefly mentioning the previously published papers that recommended those mathematical relationships.
- The article may become clearer if the equations that can be found in the literature are not accurately reproduced.
Author Response
We provide answers to the reviewer in a separate document.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Even though this article contains some redundant descriptions as to the conventional techniques, which is useful in terms of information provided but tends to lower readability, the key information looks interesting and thus practically helpful.
- A comment is that the captions are somewhat unfriendly to understand what the graphs indicate. Specifically, for example, Fig. 5 contains 4 panels labelled (a) to (d), but its caption does not explain what each panel indicates.
- Fig. 7(b) appears to be turned over. Is this intentionally done so?
- Typos in lines 78, 156, 164, 348, 617, 618 and probably in some other lines?
Author Response
1. We have clarified the caption of Figure 5 to make it more descriptive regarding its contents:
Figure 5. Optical transmission spectra for two thermally-evaporated chalcogenide samples deposited onto room-temperature glass substrates, at two cross positions of each specimen (as shown in Figure 1(b)). "Panels (a) and (b) correspond to the transmission spectra of the thinner layer, and panels (c) and (d) to the spectra of the thicker layer."
2. The Referee is right. Figure 7(b) was not properly inserted into the document. For some reason, it was flipped upside down. It is now corrected.
3. All mentioned editing typos have been indeed detected and properly taken care of.
