What Is The Crystal Structure Of Aluminium Antimonide?

Aluminum antimonide (AlSb) crystallizes in the zincblende crystal structure, which is a common crystal structure for many III-V semiconductors. In this crystal structure, each aluminum atom is surrounded by four nearest neighbor antimony atoms, and vice versa. The lattice constant of AlSb is around 6.135 angstroms.

The zincblende crystal structure can be thought of as two interpenetrating face-centered cubic lattices, one made up of aluminum atoms and the other of antimony atoms. Each atom has six nearest neighbors of the opposite type, arranged tetrahedrally around it. This arrangement of atoms gives rise to a direct bandgap semiconductor, with a bandgap of around 1.6 electron volts at room temperature.

AlSb is an important material for optoelectronics and electronic devices because of its high electron mobility and good thermal properties. It is often used as a substrate for other III-V semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide, to improve their performance.