Local Atomic Strain in ZnSe(1-x)Te(x) from High Real Space Resolution Neutron Pair Distribution Function Measurements

Journal article

High real-space resolution atomic pair distribution functions (PDFs) have been obtained from ZnSe(1-x)Te(x) using neutron powder diffraction. Distinct Zn-Se and Zn-Te nearest neighbor (nn) bonds, differing in length by delta_r= 0.14Angstroms, are resolved in the measured PDF allowing the evolution with composition of the individual bond-lengths to be studied. The local bond-lengths change much more slowly with doping than the average bond-length obtained crystallographically. The nn bond-length distributions are constant with doping but higher-neighbor pair distributions broaden significantly indicating that most of the strain from the alloying is accommodated by bond-bending forces in the alloy. The PDFs of alloys across the whole doping range are well fit using a model based on the Kirkwood potential. The resulting PDFs give excellent agreement with the measured PDFs over the entire alloy range with no adjustable parameters.

Authors: Peterson, P; Proffen, T; Jeong, I; Billinge, S; Choi, K

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Physical Review B
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 16
• Pages: 1652111-1652117
• Publication date: 2000-09-22
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.63.165211
• EISSN: 1095-3795
• ISSN: 1098-0121
• Language: English
• Keywords: cond-mat.mtrl-sci