Evolution of a Non-Uniform Deformed State in the Structure of Zinc-Chalcogenide Cubic Crystals Doped by 3d Ions

Abstract

The real structure of bulk Zn1 – хМхSe (S) crystals of diluted magnetic semiconductors with М = V, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni 3d impurities is characterized by neutron diffraction. These impurities are known to greatly destabilize even the initial lattices of pure zinc chalcogenides. Data on the resulting non-uniform microstrain field induced by atomic displacements are obtained from the structural peaks along the tangential and radial directions on the above crystals within a dopant concentration range of 0.01 ≤ х ≤ 0.10. Additional nodes with q = (1/3 1/3 1/3) 2π/a (q is the wave vector and a is the cubic unit cell) emerging in the reciprocal lattice of the cubic structure are considered as evidence for a pre-transition to the fcc (face-centered cubic)–hcp (hexagonal close-packed) phase state, which implies transitions from the fcc lattice along an 8-ray non-Lifshitz star with the wave vector k5 = μ(b1 + b2 + b3), where b1, b2, b3 are the reciprocal lattice vectors and μ ≈ 1/3.