# Zinc Blende and Wurtzite

| Here are the two most important crystal structures for semiconductors.
|  | They are often referred to by the historical names "Zinc blende" from the German "Zinkblende" = a-ZnS, a rather ubiquitous mineral. The name "Sphalerite " also comes form the German: "Sphalerit", which, as was the custom of the time, stems from the Greek "sphaleros" meaning treacherous or malicious because it is easy to confuse it with other minerals.
|  | Wurtzite was and is the name of the b-ZnS modification - the hexagonal high-temperature variant. The named after the French chemist C. A. Wurtz (* 1817, † 1884), which gives us an idea of how old those names are.
Zinc blende or sphalerite or Diamond structure | Wurtzite or hexagonal structure Red lines are not showing bonds.
|  | Of course we see immediately that what many call Zinc blende or sphalerite is simply an fcc lattice with two atoms in the base: atom A at (0,0,0,) and atom B at (½, ½, ½). Wurtzite, of course has an hexagonal lattice and ....find it out yourselve!!! ... atoms in the base. Check the links about lattice and base in general and hexagonal lattices in particular.
|  | Equally of course we notice that we have close packing, i.e. we simply have a case of ABCABC... stacking of the base, or a ABAB... stacking.
|  | From the viewpoint of tetrahedrally coordinated bond angles, it is simply a matter of going "cis" ( /—\ ) or "trans" ( /—/ ).

With frame

2.3.1 III-V Semiconductors

© H. Föll (Semiconductor Technology - Script)