The ZnSe single crystals were grown by chemical vapor transport (CVT) technique using iodine as a transporting agent. As grown ZnSe single crystals have been implanted by N5+ ion at 45 keV energy in room temperature with various fluences of 1 x 10(15), 5 x 10(15), 1 x 10(16) and 5 x 10(16) ions/cm(2). The lattice constants of the as grown and implanted ZnSe single crystals are 5.57 and 5.45 angstrom respectively. The photoluminescence studies reveal that N5+ implanted ZnSe has the band edge emission at 468 nm (2.64 eV) and broad luminescence peak due to defect level green emission at 551 nm (2.25 eV) and yellow emission 592 nm (2.09 eV). The as grown ZnSe crystal has the absorption cut off at 483 nm whereas the cut off increases from 489 to 524 nm with an increase in ion fluences. The frequency of vibration for as grown ZnSe crystal is 504 cm(-1) and for implanted ZnSe samples, the frequencies are 657-677 cm(-1) (N-Zn bending mode) and 2337-2353 cm(-1) (N-Se stretching mode) which are due to bond formation of N. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.