Role of 3d electrons in formation of ionic-covalent bonds in II-VI based ternary compounds

In the II-VI compounds doped with transition metals (diluted magnetic semiconductors) a substitution of cation by the introduced magnetic ion leads to hybridization of its 3d states with the sp states of the host semiconductor. The degree of hybridization of the 3d states and its interaction with the host material band states has been a subject of numerous discussions. Inner shell absorption spectroscopy provides very useful means of electronic structure analysis in a wide variety of systems. Due to its selectivity for atomic species and the selection rules for electron transitions, the soft X-ray absorption technique offers quite unique opportunity to measure directly the site-selective local density of the unoccupied d states in the compounds studied. Results are reported for ZnS compounds with Mn, Fe, Co or Ni substitutions for Zn.