About Arsenides

Arsenide structure

Arsenides are compounds of one or more metallic elements with arsenic. While many these compounds feature bonds with more covalent than ionic character, the arsenic in these compounds is typically considered to be an anion species, usually assigned the formal charge -3.

Many elements in group II and group III on the periodic table combine with arsenic to produce arsenide semiconductors. Gallium arsenide is the most common of these, and is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated circuits, infrared light-emitting diodes, laser diodes, solar cells, and optical windows.

Cadmium arsenide can be prepared as amorphous semiconductive glass, used in infrared detectors using Nernst effect, and in thin-film dynamic pressure sensors. It can be also used to make magnetoresistors and in photodetectors. Cadmium arsenide can also be used as a dopant for the semiconductor HgCdTe.

Indium arsenide is used for construction of photodiode infrared detectors and diode lasers.