Mercuric iodide research and development in support of DOE Historically Black Colleges and University Program. Semiannual technical progress report

This report describes the progress achieved during the first six months of the program. The different subjects studied were: zone refining experiments of mercuric iodide to establish optimum refining parameters and produce purified material; development of surface reflection spectroscopy as a method to measure crystal surface temperatures, with emphasis on investigation the potential of using optical multichannel analysis; optical methods for measuring iodine vapor during physical vapor transport of HgI{sub 2}; and atomic force microscopy studies.