Growth of single-crystalline ultra-long cadmium telluride micron-size wires via thermal evaporation

Large-scale cadmium telluride (CdTe) ultra-long single-crystalline micron-size wires were prepared by simple thermal evaporation of a mixture of CdTe and Bi powder. The wires were characterised by X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM. The CdTe wires have a length of up to about 400 µm and diameter of 0.5 to several micrometres. They were found to be single crystalline of zinc blende phase. The growth of CdTe wires was explained by the vapour–liquid–solid mechanism. The as-prepared CdTe micron wires have a narrow photoluminescence peak at 778 nm.