Zinc selenide is a light yellow binary solid compound. It is an intrinsic semiconductor

Intrinsic semiconductor

An intrinsic semiconductor, also called an undoped semiconductor or i-type semiconductor, is a pure semiconductor without any significant dopant species present. The number of charge carriers is therefore determined by the properties of the material itself instead of the amount of impurities...

 with a band gap

Band gap

In solid state physics, a band gap, also called an energy gap or bandgap, is an energy range in a solid where no electron states can exist. In graphs of the electronic band structure of solids, the band gap generally refers to the energy difference between the top of the valence band and the...

 of about 2.70 eV at 25 °C. ZnSe rarely occurs in nature. It is found in the mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

 stilleite

Stilleite

Stilleite is a selinide mineral, zinc selenide with formula ZnSe. It has been found only as microscopic grey crystals associated with other selenides. It was originally discovered in Katanga Province, Zaire in 1956 and is named for the German geologist, Hans Stille ....

 named after Hans Stille

Hans Stille

Hans Wilhelm Stille was an influential German geologist working primarily on tectonics and the collation of tectonic events during the Phanerozoic....

.
ZnSe can be made in both hexagonal (wurtzite) and cubic (zincblende) crystal structure.

It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor of the II-VI semiconductor group (since zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

 and selenium

Selenium

Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...

 belong to the 2nd and 6th groups of the periodic table

Periodic table

The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...

, respectively).