Jameson Maibam

First principles phase transition, elastic properties and electronic structure calculations for cadmium telluride under induced pressure: density functional theory, LDA, GGA and modified Becke–Johnson potential

We report first principles phase transition, elastic properties and electronic structure for cadmium telluride (CdTe) under induced pressure in the light of density functional theory using the local density approximation (LDA), generalised gradient approximation (GGA) and modified Becke–Johnson (mBJ) potential. The structural phase transition of CdTe from a zinc blende (ZB) to a rock salt (RS) structure within the LDA calculation is 2.2 GPa while that within GGA is found to be at 4 GPa pressure with a volume collapse of 20.9%. The elastic constants and parameters (Zener anisotropy factor, Shear modulus, Poissons ratio, Youngs modulus, Kleinmann parameter and Debyes temperature) of CdTe at different pressures of both the phases have been calculated. The band diagram of the CdTe ZB structure shows a direct band gap of 1.46 eV as predicted by mBJ calculation which gives better results in close agreement with experimental results as compared to LDA and GGA. An increase in the band gap of the CdTe ZB phase is predicted under induced pressure while the metallic nature is retained in the CdTe RS phase.