Patrick Knowles Abstract
Activation barriers for diffusion of Se interstitials in CdTe and CdSe
Patrick Knowles (advisor Jacques G. Amar)
REU Report - Summer 2021
Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Toledo
Abstract
Recent progress in the development of CdTe solar cells has involved the use of CdTe absorber layers combined with CdSe and/or CdSeTe layers. One area of particular interest is the interdiffusion between the CdSe layer and the CdTe layer. As a first step in understanding this, we have carried out preliminary molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of Se interstitial diffusion in both CdTe and CdSe using an empirical bond-order potential for CdSeTe [1] which has been fitted to both experimental measurements and theoretical (density functional theory) calculations.