Neutron diffraction characterization of the microstrain fields in the dilute ZnSe:Co magnetic semiconductor crystals

The real structure of Zn$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Se ($x$ = 0.01; 0.15) volume cubic crystals was characterized by thermal neutrons scattering method. Characteristics of resulting micro strain fields formed by atomic displacements were obtained from analyses of tangential and radial profile scans of the structure peaks measured on investigated crystals. Indications of initial lattice destabilizations revealed in both crystals demonstrate that the character of the structure distortions is quality changed by increasing of Co-impurity content from extreme small amount to close to solubility limit level. In particular, growing probability of substructure crystallites appeared from reaching of high-level doping is accompanied by strain-tensions emerged on the whole volume of crystal.