Quantitative analysis of defect formation in cadmium telluride during high energy electron irradiation

Single crystals of cadmium telluride have been irradiated in a high energy electron microscope. During exposure to the electron beam, extended defects which are interstitial type dislocation loops are created. The influence of experimental parameters on the loops characteristics has been investigated. Chemical Reaction Rate Theory has been developed in order to account for the kinetics of loop growth. In this way the elementary processes and their corresponding activation energies have been identified. It has been shown that the migration energy is modified around point defects and that, as a consequence, the interstitial-interstitial agglomeration energy Ei is different from the interstitial-vacancy annihilation energy Ev:Ei = 0.35 eV, Ev = 0.25 eV. The comparison between experimental and theoretical data has shown that small clusters are not stable and the dissociation energy of an atom from a low size aggregate is Ed 1.1 eV. The effects of surfaces have been considered and two different treatments have been developed. This investigation has allowed us to point out that the surface efficiency is not so high as predicted by diffusion theory and that screening effects have to be considered. These latter could be the local diffusion of interstitial towards the dislocation loops. (author)