Topic summary
Compound semiconductor
Extracted from the Wikipedia article List of semiconductor materials.
Compound semiconductors
A compound semiconductor is a semiconductor compound composed of chemical elements of at least two different species. These semiconductors form in periodic table groups 13–15 (old names IIIA-VA). The range of possible formulae is quite broad because these elements can form binary (two elements, e.g. gallium(III) arsenide (GaAs)), ternary (three elements, e.g. indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs)) and quaternary alloys (four elements) such as aluminium gallium indium phosphide (AlInGaP)) alloy and indium arsenide antimonide phosphide (InAsSbP). The properties of III-V compound semiconductors are similar to their group IV counterparts. The higher ionicity in these compounds, and especially in the II-VI compound, tends to increase the fundamental bandgap with respect to the less ionic compounds.