CdTe and Cd‐rich Ternary Tellurides

Abstract

AbstractThe E‐MRS Symposium entitled “CdTe and Cd‐rich ternary tellurides: Growth and characterization, physics of defects and impurities, surfaces and applications” was organized in Warsaw (16–20 September 2013), three years after the meeting dedicated to the “Smart growth of CdTe and Cd‐rich ternary tellurides” which was held in the framework of the 2010 E‐MRS Fall Meeting. It covered the most prominent, modern and fundamental aspects of research on these materials as well as their applications in fields such as nuclear detectors and photovoltaic cells.While CdTe‐based nanostructures are displaying a spectacular boom and are at the forefront of CdTe research, as illustrated by several hundreds of papers devoted to them in the recent literature, a significant activity is nevertheless still dedicated to bulk CdTe and associated Cd‐rich ternary tellurides, mainly CdZnTe and CdMnTe. The principal focus areas are in the fields of physics of macro‐defects, point‐defects and impurities in as‐grown and annealed crystals; surfaces and interfaces; refinement of the growth and characterization of crystals and devices; appli‐ cations dealing mainly with photovoltaic cells for which mass production has begun, and X‐ray and γ‐ray detectors, which are under development with material quality widely recognized as the key remaining issue.These topics were emphasized during the symposium and the different issues associated with them are identified and discussed. A few manuscripts only were submitted for publication in the proceedings, according to a recent deplorable and unfortunate fashion. The present proceedings are then constituted of a very limited number of contributions in which we hope the readers will nevertheless find a great interest.