E. I. Rogacheva

The existence of a range of an anomalous growth in charge carrier mobility under the transition to heavy doping is established for Bi₂Te₃ -Sb₂Te₃ solid solutions. This confirms our suggestion about the universal character of critical phenomena accompanying the transition from impurity discontinuum to impurity continuum. The experimental results are analyzed in terms of percolation theory taking into account alloy scattering and spatial correlations of impurity centers.

The goal of the present work is to reveal effects accompanying the band inversion in Pb_1-xSn_xTe solid solutions by measuring heat capacity and microhardness. The objects of the study are Pb_1-xSn_xTe alloys with Sn concentrations in the range of x = (0.59 – 0.68), near the composition corresponding to the transition to a gapless state close to room temperature. It was established that in the Pb_1-xSn_xTe solid solutions, the transition to the bulk gapless state with the band inversion is manifested through the appearance of peaks in the dependences of specific heat and microhardness on composition at a fixed temperature.