The electronics industry has shown considerable interest in semiconducting compounds with specially tailored electrical and optical properties for fabrication of a variety of electro-optic devices such as photodetectors and IR and visible lasers. One method that is commonly used to tailor the properties of various materials is adjusting the composition. This method has been exploited very successfully in case of materials as HgxCd1-xTe and GaxAl1-xAs where the change in composition results in changing Bandgap. This program will investigate a new material based on the wide bandgap semiconducting system HgBr2-HgI2 which form the ternary material, HgBrxI2-x, mercury bromoiodide. The bandgap of this ternary compound depends on the ratio of bromine to iodine in the crystal lattice and can be tuned by changing this ratio. The bandgap of HgBrxI2-x can be varied to cover almost the entire visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such a material can be used in a wide range of electro-optic applications. The goal of this program is the method to prepare, purify and grow single crystals of HgBrxI2-x and to characterize the optical and electronic properties of this material and to investigate the variation in these properties with changing composition.
