Uniaxial compressive stress induced nuclear quadrupole interaction at the 111Cd nucleus in n-doped silicon

Stress induced quadrupole interaction at the probe nucleus (111Cd) in silicon has been studied using the perturbed γ–γγ–γ angular correlation (PAC) method. The extra nuclear field, at the sites of the nuclei, is produced via the disturbances of the surrounding charges by the action of a uniaxial compressive stress on the samples. However, the probes situated at various lattice locations in the sample showed different responses for the same value of stress. The various lattice environments are mainly caused by the involvement of either tellurium or antimony donor atoms in the samples. As a result, the donor free substitutional probe atoms experience a finite nuclear quadrupole interaction due to the broken symmetry of the charge distribution upon uniaxial compression; those probe atoms, which form pairs with donors, exhibit a strong electric-field gradient (EFG) that appears to be pressure independent.