Formation energies of CdSe wurtzoid and diamondoid clusters formed from Cd and Se atomic clusters

Abstract

Cadmium Selenide thermodynamic formation energies at the molecular and nanoscale range are investigated using density functional theory. The investigation is performed using wurtzoid and diamondoid clusters that represent the wurtzite and zincblende structures at the molecular and nanoscale size range for a cluster number of atoms n ≤ 26. Cd and Se atomic clusters are optimized and used to provide component atomic cluster energies. Although both Cd and Se clusters at the nanoscale have different phases than bulk, the results show that Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of formation of CdSe are close to their experimental bulk energies of formation within errors of experimental measurements. CdSe wurtzoids generally have higher absolute (more negative) Gibbs free energy of formation than CdSe diamondoids indicating more stable wurtzoid molecules which is also the case at bulk. The absolute Gibbs free energy of wurtzoids is also higher than experimental value (more negative) because of surface effects at the nanoscale. Enthalpy of formation indicates an exothermic reaction of Cd and Se clusters as is the case at bulk. The entropy of formation of all clusters is size-sensitive and converges towards bulk experimental measurements. Both wurtzoids and diamondoids members contain Cd13Se13 cluster which is the most investigated magic CdSe cluster.