Hardening of (Pb,Cd)Te Crystal Lattice with an Increasing CdTe Content in the Solid Solution

Single crystals of the (Pb,Cd)Te solid solution with CdTe content up to 9% were grown by self-selecting vapour growth method and investigated by powder X-ray diffraction, inelastic neutron scattering, and nanoindentation measurements. The analysis of the linear part of the LA phonon dispersion, determined by the inelastic neutron scattering demonstrated an increase of the sound velocity (thus the hardening of the crystal lattice) with an increase of CdTe content in the solid solution. An important increase of microhardness value for (Pb,Cd)Te was directly confirmed by results of nanoindentation measurements performed for a few samples with various chemical composition.