Abstract
Inherently soft zinc-selenides have been hardened through beryllium doping. High-quality stoichiometric ternaries of Be (x) Zn1-x Se have been synthesized by using the Bridgeman technique. State-of-art X-ray absorption spectroscopy is performed by varying the concentration of the cationic dopant, Be, from 6% to 55% in the host ZnSe. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure analyses are carried out to study the next-neighbor and next nearest neighbor atomic positions, nature of the substitutional doping, extent of bond length homogeneity, the presence of involuntary contrast among path distances, and the crossover from a soft to a hard character of the ternary with increasing Be concentration. Our results indicate the presence of a non-regular impulsive hardening in the ternary with a disparity at the lower and the higher Be-doping levels, which are discussed vis-A -vis self-accommodation of substitutional dopants in the host lattice.