Limiting Debye temperature behavior following from cryogenic heat capacity data for group-IV, III-V, and II-VI materials

We perform analyses of cryogenic heat capacity data sets, that are available from thermo-physical literature for group-IV materials (diamond, Si, Ge, and 3C-SiC), a variety of III-V materials (BN, BP, BAs, GaN, GaP, GaAs, GaSb, InP, InAs, InSb), and several II-VI materials (ZnO, ZnS, ZnSe, CdS, and CdTe). A prominent new result of the present study consists above all in a general high-precision formula, Theta(D)(T) = Theta(D)(0) (1 + a(2)T(2) + a(4)T(4))(-1/3), for the limiting behavior of the Debye temperature in the liquid helium-hydrogen region. The actual magnitudes of limiting Debye temperatures, Theta(D)(0), in combination with the associated (throughout positive) curve shape coefficients, a(2) and a(4), are given in unambiguous way in terms of the three lowest-order heat capacity coefficients involved by conventional Taylor series expansions for lattice heat capacities within the cryogenic range up to temperatures of order Theta(D)(0)/30. Among the variety of presently specified calorimetric Theta(D)(0) values, particularly those obtained for a series of wide-bandgap materials may be of considerable interest. These are about 1110 K for 3C-SiC, 1860 for c-BN, 950 K for BP, 592 K for GaN, 429 or 392 K for isotopically modified samples Zn-64 O-16 and Zn-68 O-18, respecfively, 414 K for natural ZnO, 349 K for ZnS, 276 K for ZnSe, and 236 K for US. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim