Quaternary semiconductor materials of the Pb
4Ga
4GeS(Se)
12 composition have attracted the attention of researchers due to their possible use as active elements of optoelectronics and nonlinear optics. The Pb
4Ga
4GeS(Se)
12 phases belong to the solid
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Quaternary semiconductor materials of the Pb
4Ga
4GeS(Se)
12 composition have attracted the attention of researchers due to their possible use as active elements of optoelectronics and nonlinear optics. The Pb
4Ga
4GeS(Se)
12 phases belong to the solid solution ranges of the Pb
3Ga
2GeS(Se)
8 compounds which form in the quasi-ternary systems PbS(Se)−Ga
2S(Se)
3−GeS(Se)
2 at the cross of the PbGa
2S(Se)
4−Pb
2GeS(Se)
4 and PbS(Se)−PbGa
2GeS(Se)
6 sections. The quaternary sulfide melts congruently at 943 K. The crystallization of the Pb
4Ga
4GeSe
12 phase is associated with the ternary peritectic process L
p + PbSe ↔ PbGa
2S
4 + Pb
3Ga
2GeSe
8 at 868 K. For the single crystal studies, Pb
4Ga
4GeS(Se)
12 were pre-synthesized by co-melting high-purity elements. The X-ray diffraction results confirm that these compounds possess non-centrosymmetric crystal structure (tetragonal symmetry, space group
P–421c). The crystals were grown by the vertical Bridgman method in a two-zone furnace. The starting composition was stoichiometric for Pb
4Ga
4GeS
12, and the solution-melt method was used for the selenide Pb
4Ga
4GeSe
12. The obtained value of the bandgap energy for the Pb
4Ga
4GeS
12 and Pb
4Ga
4GeSe
12 crystals is 1.86 and 2.28 eV, respectively. Experimental measurements of the spectral distribution of photoconductivity for the Pb
4Ga
4GeS
12 and Pb
4Ga
4GeSe
12 crystals exhibit the presence of two spectral maxima. The first lies in the region of 570 (2.17 eV) and 680 nm (1.82 eV), respectively, and matches the optical bandgap estimates well. The locations of the admixture maxima at about 1030 (1.20 eV) and 1340 nm (0.92 eV), respectively, agree satisfactorily with the calculated energy positions of the defects vs. and V
Se.
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