Electronic and atomic structures of Shockley-partial dislocations in CdX (X = S, Se and Te)

II–VI semiconductors, including Cd compounds, become brittle under light illumination. This phenomenon is known as the photoplastic effect (PPE) and is thought to arise from interactions between glide dislocations and photoexcited carriers. The present study investigated atomic structures of 30° Shockley-partial dislocations with and without excess carriers in CdX (X = S, Se and Te), by density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations. It was found that both Cd and anion cores favor unreconstructed atomic structures when excess carriers are absent. In the presence of excess carriers, on the other hand, reconstructed atomic structures were more stable at the anion cores while the unreconstructed ones were still energetically more favorable at the Cd cores. It is thus expected that only the anion cores change their atomic structures by light illumination, which can retard glide-dislocation motion by forming like-atom bonds. Analyses of local densities of states (LDOSs) revealed that the reconstructed Cd and anion cores form shallow and deep defect states within the band gaps, respectively. This determines the possible atomic reconstructions at the dislocation cores in the presence of excess carriers excited by external light.