STUDY OF LATTICE CONSTANTS OF QUATERNARY Pb1-x-ySnxMnyTe COMPOUNDS

E. Dynowska, S. Miotkowska, J. Kachniarz, T. Story, A. Jędrzejczak

Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland


The aim of those studies was to find the dependence of the lattice constants on the real compositions of the Pb1-X-YSnXMnYTe crystals grown by the Bridgman method. The nominal values of the investigated samples were: 0.29 < x < 0.80 and 0.01 < x < 0.21. The determination of the real composition have been carried out using the electron microprobe analysis, and the studies of the lattice constants were made using the X-ray powder diffractometer. Generally, the lattice constant decreases with increasing of Sn and Mn contents from a = 6.460 A for PbTe (x = 0, y = 0) to a = 6.227 A for x = 0.78 and x = 0.20. The lattice constant changes are very difficult to describe in a simply way as a function of composition. In this paper, an attempt of finding the method of determining the sample composition from the lattice constant measurements was undertaken.