Pressure dependence of donor excitation spectra in AlSb

Abstract

We have investigated the behavior of ground- to bound excited-state electronic transitions of Se and Te donors in AlSb as a function of hydrostatic pressure. Using broadband far-infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy, we observe qualitatively different behaviors of the electronic transition energies of the two donors. While the pressure derivative of the Te transition energy is small and constant, as might be expected for a shallow donor, the pressure derivatives of the Se transition energies are quadratic and large at low pressures, indicating that Se is actually a deep donor. In addition, at pressures between 30 and 50 kbar, we observe evidence of an anticrossing between one of the selenium electronic transitions and a two-phonon mode.