Thermal property of binary tetrahedral semiconductors

In this paper we present an expression relating the lattice thermal expansion coefficient αL (10-6 K-1) for the AIIIBV and AIIBVI semiconductors with the product of ionic charges (Z1Z2), melting temperature (Tm) and nearest neighbor distance d (A). The lattice thermal expansion coefficient of these compounds exhibit a linear relationship when plotted on a log-log scale against the melting temperature (Tm), but fall on different straight lines according to the ionic charge product of the compounds. A good agreement has been found between the experimental and calculated values of the lattice thermal expansion coefficient for AIIIBV and AIIBVI semiconductors.