High-pressure induced structural phase transition in alkaline earth CaX (X = S, Se and Te) semiconductors: NaCl-type (B1) to CsCl-type (B2)

The present paper addresses the pressure-induced structural aspects of NaCl-type (B1) to CsCl-type (B2) structure in alkaline earth chalcogenides (AECs) calcium chalcogenides (CaX: X= S, Se and Te) by formulating an effective interionic interaction potential (EIoIP) with long-range Coulomb interactions and the Hafemeister and Flygare type short-range overlap repulsion extended upto the second neighbor ions and the van der Waals (vdW) interaction. The vdW coefficients are evaluated following the Slater-Kirkwood variational method, as both the ions are polarizable. The present calculations have revealed reasonably good agreement with the available experimental data on structural transition (B1 to B2 structure), the phase transition pressures (P-t) of 40 (CaS), 38 (CaSe) and 34 (CaTe) GPa as well the elastic properties. The calculated values of the volume collapses [Delta V(P)/V(0)] are also closer to their observed data. Further, the variations of the second and third order elastic constants with pressure have followed a systematic trend, which are almost identical to those exhibited by the observed data measured for other semiconducting compounds with rocksalt (B1) type crystal structure. The Born and relative stability criteria is valid in Ca monochalcogenides. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.