Gallium antimonide (GaSb) is a semiconducting compound of

gallium Gallium is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Ga and atomic number 31. Discovered by the French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875, elemental gallium is a soft, silvery metal at standard temperature and pressure. ...

and

antimony Antimony is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Sb () and atomic number 51. A lustrous grey metal or metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...

of the III-V family. It has a room temperature

lattice constant A lattice constant or lattice parameter is one of the physical dimensions and angles that determine the geometry of the unit cells in a crystal lattice, and is proportional to the distance between atoms in the crystal. A simple cubic crystal has ...

of about 0.610 nm. It has a room temperature direct bandgap of approximately 0.73 eV.

History

The intermetallic compound GaSb was first prepared in 1926 by

Victor Goldschmidt Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (27 January 1888 – 20 March 1947) was a Norwegian mineralogist considered (together with Vladimir Vernadsky) to be the founder of modern geochemistry and crystal chemistry, developer of the Goldschmidt Classificatio ...

, who directly combined the elements under an inert gas atmosphere and reported on GaSb's lattice constant, which has since been revised. Goldschmidt also synthesized gallium phosphide and

gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...

. The Ga-Sb phase equilibria was investigated in 1955 by Koster and by Greenfield.

Applications

GaSb can be used for Infrared detectors,

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

s and

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

and

transistors A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

, and thermophotovoltaic systems.

References

External links

properties listed at NSM
Ioffe Institute.
National Compound Semiconductor Roadmap
at the Office of Naval Research {{Antimony compounds III-V semiconductors Gallium compounds Antimonides III-V compounds Zincblende crystal structure

History

Applications

See also

References

External links