Two-temperature synthesis of ZnGeP2

We describe a modified two-temperature process for reproducible high-volume (up to 500 g) synthesis of the nonlinear-optical semiconductor ZnGeP2, which enables the preparation of nominally stoichiometric material. The major reaction intermediates in the two-temperature ZnGeP2 synthesis are ZnP2, Zn3P2, GeP, and Ge. Using x-ray diffraction, we refined the interplanar spacings in the tetragonal structure of ZnGeP2 and fcc structure of GeP and indexed peaks missing in the PDF cards 33-1471 (ZnGeP2) and 21-353 (GeP).