Desirable crystals of ZnSiAs
2, ZnGeP
2 and CdGeP
2 of the group of A
IIB
IVC
V2 compounds have been grown by either vertical Bridgman method or slow cooling.
Preparation of the phosphides was carried out with an internal heating high-pressure resistance furnace. The following physical, thermal and electrical properties of these compounds were measured; the melting point, lattice constants, microhardness, Seebeck coefficient and thermal conductivity at room temperature, and the temperature dependence of resistivity and Hall coefficient.
ZnSiAs
2 and ZnGeP
2 are p-type and CdGeP
2 is n-type. ZnSiAs
2 is regarded as a material similar to the “semi-insulating” GaAs from the temperature dependence of electrical properties. It was found that the melting points of ZnSiAs
2, ZnGeP
2 and CdGeP
2 lie at 1096°, 1025° and 800°C, respectively, and ZnGeP
2 undergoes a solid state transformation at 952°C. CdGeP
2 was determined to have the chalcopyrite structure with the lattice constants of
a=5.740±0.001 Å and
c⁄
a=1.876±0.001. All the compounds show total thermal conductivities of 0.1-0.2 W/cm-deg, lower than most binary semiconductors A
IIIB
V. It can be said that on the A
IIB
IVC
V2 compounds, a general linear trend such as found in the A
IB
IIIC
2VI compounds of the same type exists between the shortest interatomic distance and the hardness or the energy gap, and between the tetragonality and the ordering factor,
Δrc‾
ΔX (
Δrc=the differences in the ionic radii of cations, ‾
ΔX=the electronegativity difference of the constituents).
View full abstract