Dielectric studies of Cd1-x-yZnxMnyTe crystals

We report on the dielectric properties of Cd1-x-yZnxMnyTe alloys studied by capacitance and dissipation factor measurements at temperature 5 K <T < 475 K and frequency 20 Hz <f <1 MHz. A Debye-like relaxation of dielectric behavior has been observed, which is found to be a thermally activated process. The activation energies obtained from the capacitance and dissipation factor measurements are in excellent agreement. By means of our measurements, it is believed that the dielectric character of the carrier hopping among structural defects is responsible for the observed Debye relaxation. The relationship between the activation energy and Zn concentration has been established. The results are described by the four-center model, in which the number of Zn atoms appearing in the nearest-neighbor sites of a defect can have four possible configurations. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.