Piezoresistance of Indium Antimonide

Abstract

By applying a tensile stress to specially prepared and oriented samples, the piezoresistivity coefficients of both $n$- and $p$-type indium antimonide have been measured over the temperature range 77°K to 300°K. The results for extrinsic $p$-type material are similar to those for $p$-type Si and Ge, indicating that the valence band structure is similar. Extrinsic $n$-type InSb results confirm the picture of a conduction band having its minimum at the center of the Brillouin zone. The largest effect that was observed in intrinsic material was in the volume coefficient and can be attributed to the change in the forbidden gap due to dilatation of the lattice. The value of this change of gap per unit strain was estimated to be $E_{1g}=-7.0\mathrm{}$ ev.