The potential of the perturbed angular correlation technique in characterizing semiconductors

Several experimental techniques are available to investigate materials but microscopic techniques based on hyperfine interaction form a subclass that can characterize materials at the smallest possible atomic scale. The interaction of the nuclear electromagnetic moments with the hyperfine fields arising from the extranuclear electronic charges and spin distributions forms the basis of hyperfine methods. In this review article, one of the hyperfine methods, known as perturbed angular correlation (PAC), has been described as it provides local-scale fingerprints about the formation, identification, and lattice environment of defects and/or defect complexes in semiconductors at the PAC probe site. In particular, the potential of the PAC technique has been demonstrated in terms of measured electric field gradient, its orientation, and the symmetry at the probe site for a variety of defects in semiconductors such as Si, InP, GaAs, InAs, ZnO, GaP, and InN.