* Corresponding author. E-mail address: rybka@kipt.kharkov.ua (A.V. Rybka). Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 458 (2001) 448 } 454 AlSb single-crystal grown by HPBM V.E. Kutny, A.V. Rybka*, A.S. Abyzov, L.N. Davydov, V.K. Komar, M.S. Rowland, C.F. Smith NSC **KIPT++, 310108 Kharkov, Ukraine STC **ISC++, Kharkov, Ukraine LLNL, USA Abstract Theoretical prognosis for AlSb places this widegap compound among the best materials for room temperature detectors and spectrometers. However, results experimentally obtained with AlSb are somewhat discouraging showing the necessity for improving the compound quality. The main di$culties connected with single-crystal growth are high reactivity of the melt with crucible material and a high volatility of Sb. In order to counteract the latter obstacle, an attempt was undertaken to synthesize and grow AlSb crystals by HPBM under the inert gas pressure of 40 atm. Di!erent crucible materials: aluminum oxide, vitreous carbon, quartz, graphite, beryllium oxide, and zirconium oxide were tested and their comparative analysis was made. The obtained crystals were investigated and some electrophysical properties measured.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 81.10.Fq: 72.80.Ey Keywords: AlSb; Single-crystal growth; Semiconductors; High-pressure Bridgman; Crucible material 1. Introduction A theoretical prognosis for aluminum antimony (AlSb) places this compound semiconductor among the best suited materials for room temperature de- tectors and spectrometers [1]. AlSb is an indirect band semiconductor with bandgap of about 1.62 eV at 300 K and 1.75 eV at 77 K [2}7]. Though earlier works [5,6,8,9] showed great interest in AlSb crystals, the experimentally observed electro- physical properties of this compound are not so encouraging. Some of these parameters are com- pared in Table 1 with the theoretical predictions for AlSb as well as with parameters of widely used CdTe and CdZnTe. Although many attempts to grow the crystals by THM casting, Bridgman as well as Czochralsky methods were made [2,11,13}16] the main reason to discrepancy between theory and experiment is the lack of single crystals of su$cient quality [11]. There are some major technical problems in growing AlSb crystals and fabricating devices on its basis. They are mainly related to with the intrinsic nature of Al, its high reactivity or a$nity to oxygen, and high volatility of Sb. The most serious problems are:  the choice of crucible material, because the AlSb melt reacts with almost all crucible materials. 0168-9002/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 9 0 0 2 ( 0 0 ) 0 1 0 3 9 - 1