Characteristic
Zinc telluride is a binary chemical compound with the formula ZnTe. This solid is a semiconductor material with a direct band gap of 2.26 eV.It is usually a p-type semiconductor. Its crystal structure is cubic, like that for sphalerite and diamond.
Chemical formula:ZnTe
Molar mass:192.99 g/mol
Appearance:red crystals
Density:6.34 g/cm3
Melting point:1,295 °C; 2,363 °F; 1,568 K
Band gap:2.26 eV
Electron mobility:340 cm2/(V·s)
Thermal conductivity:108 mW/(cm·K)
Refractive index (nD):3.56
Crystal structure:Zinc blende (cubic)
Application
Zinc telluride can be easily doped, and for this reason it is one of the more common semiconducting materials used in optoelectronics. ZnTe is important for development of various semiconductor devices, including blue LEDs, laser diodes, solar cells, and components of microwave generators. It can be used for solar cells, for example, as a back-surface field layer and p-type semiconductor material for a CdTe/ZnTe structure or in PIN diode structures. The material can also be used as a component of ternary semiconductor compounds.Zinc telluride together with lithium niobate is often used for generation of pulsed terahertz radiation in time-domain terahertz spectroscopy and terahertz imaging.