On the experimental substantiation of the hybridization of electronic states on cobalt impurities in the conduction band of a crystal

Abstract

The article presents the experimental results concerning the role of cobalt impurities in low-temperature electrical conduction and in the Hall concentration of electrons in crystals of mercury selenide. In the limit of small concentrations of the impurities, a slow variation of the electron concentration was found as a function of impurity content, which can correspond to a donor character of the impurity d levels of cobalt atoms located in the conduction band of the host crystal under conditions of hybridization. Characteristic features have been observed in the concentration and temperature dependences of the electrical conductivity, similar to those that manifest themselves in crystals with hybridized states of iron impurities. As a result, the set of data obtained on crystals with cobalt impurities, including the previously published data on the concentration dependence of the Curie constant and on the temperature dependence of thermopower, can be used on a qualitative level as an experimental substantiation of the previously predicted existence of two donor hybridized electron states of a cobalt impurity atom in the conduction band.