GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE

Chemical properties

cub; 6mm pieces and smaller with 99.99% purity; band gap, eV, 0.81 (0K), 0.72 (300K); mobility (300K), cm2/(V·s), 5000 for electrons, 850 for holes; effective mass 0.042 for electrons, 0.40 for holes; dielectric constant 15.7; enthalpy of fusion 25.10kJ/mol; used in semiconducting devices; obtained by direct reaction of Ga and Sb at high temp [HAW93] [KIR82] [CER91] [CRC10]

The Uses of GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE

Gallium antimonide (GaSb), when in pure form, is used in semiconductor industries.

The Uses of GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE

GaSb is utilized as a substrate for a low-pass filter using sharp onset oftransmission at 1.8 mm (300 K). Visible detector. The photovoltaic cell using a p–n junction has its sensibility for 0.4–0.9 mm. The cell has the maximum detectivity D*=4.5×10¹¹ cm Hz^1/2/W (400 Hz) at 0.8 mm and a time constant of ca. 10^-3s.

The Uses of GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE

Gallium antimonide can be used for Infrared detectors, infrared LEDs and lasers and transistors, and thermophotovoltaic systems. It can be used as a component of photoresists and other composites where high refractive index is desirable

Production Methods

To grow single crystals, high-grade (more than 99.999%) Ga and antimony (Sb) are mixed stoichiometrically in a quartz or graphite boat and melted in an H2 atmosphere, followed by horizontal zone refining of the mixture. To grow large single crystals, the material obtained using the method above is put into a quartz or graphite crucible and melted in an H2 atmosphere after removing the surface oxide by etching. The large crystals are then grown by the Czochralski method. To obtain highgrade GaSb, the atmospheric gas H2 must be purified by flowing through heated palladium (Pd). The GaSb with the carrier density of p-type 2×10¹⁶ cm^-3and mobility of 2740 cm²/Vs has been reported for pure GaSb.This crystal can be also synthesized by the solution method. GaSb precipitates by decreasing the temperature of liquid Ga, containing 10%–20% (atomic ratio) of Sb, slowly from the melting point of GaSb.

Structure and conformation

The space lattice of gallium antimonide (GaSb) belongs to the cubic system, and its zinc blendetype structure has a lattice constant of a=0.6118 nm, Gsa–Sb=0.264 nm.