Growth and Structural Characterization of Zinc Blende HgS

Abstract

The zinc blende (metastable) modification of mercury sulphide was stabilized by the partial substitution of Hg atoms by Mn, Fe, and Co. The structure of such crystals grown by the modified Bridgman method was investigated by X-ray diffraction and electron transmission spectroscopy techniques. The single-phase character of the crystals was demonstrated, the presence of defects resulting from the disorder in the stacking sequence of (111) layers was evidenced.Introduction Mercury sulphide phase stable at ambient conditions is a-HgS which crystallizes in the cinnabar structure. Zinc blende (or sphalerite) mercury sulphide (bHgS) is a metastable modification of this compound and cannot be obtained by equilibrium growth techniques. b-HgS together with other mercury chalcogenides (HgTe and HgSe) belongs to zero-gap semiconductors. Because of their particular physical properties (inverted band structure, high non-parabolicity of the conduction band, etc.) these materials attracted a lot of attention in the past. For many years, very limited data concerning the properties of b-HgS were deduced from results of investigations of mixed crystals as well as from the studies of thin b-HgS layers evaporated on specific substrates. Two different groups of such mixed crystals were grown. In the first (anionic solid solutions) group significant part of S atoms was replaced by Se or Te. The second group of mixed crystals (cationic solid solutions) was obtained by a partial substitution of Hg atoms by another metal like Zn or Cd.Zinc blende structure of the mixed crystals grown on the basis of mercury sulphide can also be achieved by a partial substitution of Hg atoms by Mn as it has been demonstrated more than twenty years ago by the hydrothermal method (see [1]). Hg 1--x Mn x S mixed crystals have been synthesized in a composition range up to the value x = 0.375 [1], which corresponds to the solubility limit of Mn in HgS. However, due to the small size of crystallites grown by this method, only very few structural and magnetic properties were investigated for such polycrystalline material. Recently, results of both, magnetic and infrared reflectivity measurements performed on Hg 1--x Mn x S polycrystalline pellets can also be found in the literature (e.g., [2]).This situation changed a few years ago, when it was demonstrated that the addition of a few other 3d transition metals (TM) may stabilize the b-HgS crystal structure and large single mixed crystals can be grown with quite a small TM content (TM = Mn, Fe or Co) [3]. Progress in the technology mentioned above enables a development of

Studying the local chemical environment of sulfur atoms at buried interfaces in CdS/ZnSe superlattices

“…Figure 1 presents a set of S L 2,3 emission spectra for epitaxial thin films ͑cubic ZnS and hexagonal CdS͒ and single crystals (Cd 0.51 Zn 0.49 S mixed crystal and HgS stabilized in the cubic phase by Fe impurities͒. 16,17 The main features of interest in this letter are the lower valence states with predominant metal d-state character. In Fig.…”

Structural phase transition and elastic properties of mercury chalcogenides

“…HgS is observed under normal conditions in both cinnabar phase and (meta stable) zinc-blende phase whereas HgSe and HgTe both possess (semi metallic) zinc-blende phase at ambient pressure. Also, cubic mercury chalcogenides belongs to zero-gap semiconductors with particular physical properties like inverted band structure, high non-parabolic of the conduction band [2] therefore these materials have attracted a lot of attention.…”

One-Step Synthesis and Assembly of Two-Dimensional Arrays of Mercury Sulfide Nanocrystal Aggregates at the Air/Water Interface

“…Figure a shows the SAED pattern of HgS nanocrystals corresponding to Figure d. This pattern clearly shows the characteristic of cubic HgS (β-HgS) polycrystallite, − in which the diffraction rings can be indexed to (111), (200), (220), (311), (222), (400), (331), (422), and (333), respectively. It can be seen that this pattern is obviously different from the ED patterns of hexagonal HgS (α-HgS). , …”