Palladium-vacancy pairs in p-type and n-type germanium

Time differential perturbed angular correlation spectroscopy was performed for n-type and p-type germanium samples that had been recoil-implanted with the probe ¹⁰⁰Pd/¹⁰⁰Rh. Two different measurements with the detectors aligned along <100> and <110> crystallographic directions of germanium confirm that the palladium probe pairs with the nearest neighbour vacancy and not a dopant. The pairs interact with a coupling constant of υ _Q = 10.7(2) MHz and this agrees with what has been observed in undoped Ge. This further suggests that the palladium pairs with a vacancy in germanium, doped or un-doped. It was also observed that there are more Pd-V pairs in Ga-doped than there are in Sb-doped Ge. DFT calculations of the binding energies of the Pd-defect complexes support the experimental observations.