Pressure-induced phase transition in wurtzite ZnTe: an ab initio study

A constant pressure ab initio MD technique and density functional theory with a generalized gradient approximation (GGA) was used to study the pressure-induced phase transition in wurtzite ZnTe. A first-order phase transition from the wurtzite structure to a Cmcm structure was successfully observed in a constant-pressure molecular dynamics simulation. This phase transformation was also analyzed using enthalpy calculations. We also investigated the stability of wurtzite (WZ) and zinc-blende (ZB) phases from energy-volume calculations, and found that both structures show quite similar equations of state and transform into a Cmcm structure at 16 GPa using enthalpy calculations, in agreement with experimental observations. The transition phase, lattice parameters and bulk properties we obtained are comparable with experimental and theoretical data.