The present book is written for research and postgraduate students who
are interested to get first hand information about various electronic
and thermal properties of binary (II-VI, III-V) and ternary (I-III-VI2,
II-IV-V2) semiconductors. In this book, simple models based on plasma
oscillations theory of solids, have been proposed for the calculation of
various bond parameters such as bond length, energy gaps, ionicity and
dielectric constant for these groups of semiconductors. Two simple
models have been proposed for the calculation of heats of formation. One
is based on the spectroscopic model of Phillips and Van Vechten and
other is based on the best fit of the data of heat of formation and
plasmon energy. Finally, simple relations between plasmon energy and
thermal expansion coefficients have been developed. Special care of
delocalization of noble metal d-electrons effect has been taken into
account in the case of I(Cu, Ag)-VI bond in the I-III-VI2
semiconductors. The calculated values of above parameters are in fair
agreement with the experimental values and the values reported by other
workers.