Mercury telluride - A semiconductor with a zero forbidden band

A review paper is presented on the basic properties of mercury telluride. An inverse band model is applied to the semiconductor with attention given to the effect of relativistic corrections on the location of bands in semiconductors with zinc blende structure, the overlapping of valence and conduction bands in mercury telluride, and the anomalous temperature dependence of the energy gap. Conditions for the formation of a forbidden band in mercury telluride are examined along with features of the valence and conduction bands, taking account of the p-type nature of electron states in the conduction band, and nonparabolicity of the conduction band and electron spin. The impurity states and the permittivity of mercury telluride are also considered.