Alloy broadening of impurity electronic spectra: One-dimensional-model calculations for a ternary alloy

The embedded-cluster method is used to investigate the inhomogeneous alloy broadening of impurity spectral lines in substitutional crystalline ternary alloys, within a simple model. The model considered is that of a defect in a tight-binding, one-state-per-atom, one-dimensional ternary alloy AxB1-xC with nearest-neighbor interactions. The dependences of the impurity energy levels and the alloy-broadened linewidths on the composition x, the alloy tight-binding parameters, and the impurity site are discussed and compared with previous results obtained for defects in binary alloys.