Optical and Magneto-Optical Properties of Some Semiconductors

This article reviews our works on the visible and infrared studies of semiconductors during past two years. The problems treated here are concerned mainly with the experimental determination of the electronic band parameters in Ge, PbTe, PbSe, aSe, InSb and (HgTe)_(CdTe)_x (x=0, 0.15) in terms of the effective mass approximation. The measurements on most of these substances were carried out with respect to their intraband or interband magneto-absorption and the rotatory dispersion at several values of temperature in the range from 1.77°K to 300°K. The far-infrared measurements on GaSe, GaS and HgTe showed the absorption peaks associated with their lattice vibrations. Three kinds of magnets were used for producing the magnetic field in the above experiments : 1) Bitter solenoid of Helmholtz type with the maximum magnetic field of 39 kgauss, 2) Superconducting magnet made particularly convenient for the magneto-optical measurements and 3) Pulse magnet with its maximum field of 201 kgauss by means of condenser discharge