Zinc telluride

Zinc telluride (Template:Zinc Template:Tellurium) is an intrinsic semiconductor material with band gap of 2.23-2.25 eV. It is usually a p-type semiconductor. Its crystal structure is cubic, of sphalerite. Its lattice constant is 0.61034 nm, allowing it to be grown with or on aluminium antimonide, gallium antimonide, indium arsenide, and lead selenide. [1] Its CAS number is 1315-11-3. Its melting point is 1238.5 °C. It has the appearance of grey or brownish-red powder, or ruby-red crystals when refined by sublimation.

Zinc telluride can be also prepared as hexagonal crystals.

Zinc telluride can be used as an optical material in infrared optics. However, if the beam irradiance limits are exceeded, it can burn in presence of oxygen.

Zinc telluride is important for development of various semiconductor devices, including blue LEDs, laser diodes, solar cells, microwave parts, etc.

Solar cells may be made of a thin layer of cadmium telluride grown on thicker layer of cadmium sulfide, which is deposited on a background layer of zinc telluride, forming a PIN structure, where ZnTe is the P-type semiconductor, CdS is the I-type semiconductor, and CdTe is the N-type semiconductor.

Zinc telluride crystals can be used for generation of terahertz radiation. When a crystal is subjected to a high-intensity light pulse of sub-picosecond duration, it emits a pulse of terahertz radiation. (Lithium niobate can be used in a similar way.) Conversely, subjecting a zinc telluride crystal to terahertz radiation causes it to show optical birefringence and change the polarization of transmitting light, making it useful as a detector. [2] A crystal of zinc telluride can be used for terahertz imaging, when illuminated by a readout laser beam, making the changes caused by exposition to teraherz radiation visible. [3] Gallium phosphide can be used for the same purpose as well. However, the quality of the materials vary wildly from vendor to vendor and even from batch to batch. [4]

For terahertz processing, zinc telluride crystals have to be cooled with liquid nitrogen.

Vanadium doped zinc telluride (ZnTe:V) is a non-linear optical photorefractive material with possible use to protect sensors at visible wavelengths, as an electro-optic power limiter (EOPL). ZnTe:V optical limiters are light and compact, without complicated optics of conventional limiters. ZnTe:V can block a high-intensity jamming beam from a laser dazzler, while still passing the lower-intensity image of the observed scene. [5] It can also be used in holographic interferometry, in reconfigurable optical interconnections, and in laser phase conjugation devices. It offers superior photorefractive performance at wavelengths between 600-1300 nm, in comparison with other III-V and II-VI compound semiconductors. By adding manganese as an additional dopant (ZnTe:V:Mn), its photorefractive yield can be significantly increased. [6]