Features of electrical conductivity in the n-ZrNiSn intermetallic semiconductor heavily doped with the In acceptor impurity

• Published in: Semiconductors (Woodbury, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2007-09, Vol.41 (9), p.1041-1047
• Main Authors: Romaka, V. A., Stadnyk, Yu. V., Romaka, V. V., Fruchart, D., Gorelenko, Yu. K., Chekurin, V. F., Goryn’, A. M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Electrical resistivity; Impurities; Semiconductor materials
• ISSN: 1063-7826; 1090-6479
• DOI: 10.1134/S1063782607090072

The temperature and concentration dependences of resistivity and thermopower in a heavily doped and highly compensated semiconductor alloy ZrNiSn1−xInx in the temperature range T = 80–380 K at x = 0.005–0.15 are studied. It is assumed that the ZrNiSn semiconductor doped heavily with the In acceptor impurity is an amorphous semiconductor. It is experimentally established that there is a proportionality between the parameters of fluctuations in the bands of continuous energies, depth of fluctuations, and the depth of the potential well for a small-scale fluctuation. The conclusion advanced by Shklovskiĭ and Éfros in 1972 [10] is experimentally confirmed for the first time; this conclusion is concerned with the assertion that, in a highly doped and completely compensated semiconductor, the maximum amplitude of fluctuations in the bands of continuous energies is equal to the half width of the band gap of the semiconductor, while the Fermi level is located near the midgap.