Photoemission spectra of frozen rock salt Pb1−xCdxTe crystal

Abstract The bulk single crystals of Pb 1− x Cd x Te were obtained by self-selecting vapor growth (SSVG) method with proper quenching. Tunable high energy X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (THE-XPS) and ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS) were applied to study the crystals electronic structure of valence band and core level regions. The valence band density of states distribution spectra remarkably changes with the crystal composition. In most cases obtained valence band spectra of ternary crystal with dominating of ionic bonding can be in first approximation treated as a sum of the components spectra. In the case of measured Pb 1− x Cd x Te ternary crystal this first order approximation does not follow the rule and inclination of ternary crystal spectra possesses some differences from the sum of spectra measured for crystal PbTe and CdTe. The increase of Cd contents in the crystals leads to appearance of an additional density of states in the large part of the valence band, for binding energy range up to 10 eV.