The contribution of solid-state chemistry in the determination of multicomponent phase diagrams

For a long period of time, the determination of phase diagrams was only supported by experiments related to thermal effects or thermodynamic measurements: thermal analysis, calorimetric measurements, vapor pressures, and EMF measurements. As a matter of fact, solid-solid transformations were not so accurately determined and could not be taken into account in the system's analysis. First, X-ray diffraction methods were used as a support for the thermal analysis. Second, the implementation of novel tools in structural analysis (for example, the Rietveld method) has permitted to increase the knowledge of phase stability. Finally, modeling the phases using a Calphad method needed increasingly more structural results to determine and better understand the phase diagrams. On the other hand, the Calphad method has been widely developed for metallic systems, for oxide systems, and in the past 10 years, for some semi-conductor systems, for example, gallium arsenide, cadmium telluride, and lead telluride systems. In such applications, it is very important to bring point defects in the modeling of the phases to map the defects as a function of the chemical composition. Owing to its complexity, this characteristic, the knowledge of which is crucial for the understanding and the control of potential physical applications, was ignored in the previous assessment of semi-conductor systems.