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Stoichiometry driven impurity configurations in compound semiconductors
G Chen1, I Miotkowski, S Rodriguez
1Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
Abstract:
Precise stoichiometry and departures therefrom in the composition of the tetrahedrally coordinated compound semiconductors allow impurity incorporation in more than one configuration. Ultrahigh resolution infrared spectroscopy of CdTe:O at low temperatures reveals a unique sharp doublet associated with the local vibrational modes of OTe in a (OTe-VCd) complex with nearest neighbor Cd vacancy VCd and a single sharp line attributed to the local vibrational mode of OTe in a perfect CdTe. The uniaxial (C3v) symmetry of (OTe-VCd) transforms to Td symmetry at T* approximately 300 K, acquired due to an increasing rate of dynamic switching of the "OTe-VCd" dangling bond in which the vacancy and its three next nearest neighbor Cd cations exchange positions as temperature (T) approaches T*; for T>or=T*, the doublet thus transforms into a single, triply degenerate line.
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