New experimental results on Raman scattering from porous silicon and silicon and gallium arsenide nanocrystals are reported. In all of these systems, almost all vibrational modes become Raman active and are remarkably soft. A carrier-induced strain model is proposed to explain the optical properties of these nanocrystal systems. According to this carrier-induced strain model, the selection rule of crystal momentum conservation for Raman scattering is greatly relaxed in Si and GaAs nanocrystals due to the dilatation strain caused by coupling of excited free carriers with the particle lattice and the optical properties of such systems are dominated by multiphonon assisted free-electron transition processes.

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Physical vapor transport studies of GeSexTe1–x (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) solid solutions demonstrated, that individual, large single crystals of these materials can be grown in closed ampoules. A compositional analysis of the grown crystals revealed, that the mass transport (crystal growth) process under steady‐state conditions is pseudo‐congruent and controlled by diffusion processes in the source material. From these experiments, the degree of nonstoichiometry (Ge‐vacancy concentrations) of GeSexTe1–x single crystals could be estimated. The effects of the cubic to rhombohedral phase transformation during cooling on the microstructure and morphology of the grown mixed crystals are observed. This work provides the basis for subsequent defect studies and electrical measurements on these crystals.

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