Bi impurity in PbSe

Doping with Bi and self-compensation in PbSe were studied. Dependences of t he carrier concentration on the Bi content and excess amount of Se have bee n determined for metal-ceramic samples from Hall data. The comparison of th e experimental data with calculation results shows that the donor effect of Bi is compensated for by doubly ionized lead vacancies. At a high impurity content, N-Bi > 0.5 at. %, the compensation is deeper than that predicted by the theory. This effect is accounted for by the formation of (impurity a tom)-vacancy complexes and the redistribution of Bi between the cation and anion sublattices of PbSe. (C) 2001 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".