Effects of chlorine drag on the annealing-induced abnormal grain growth in polycrystalline CdTe

The annealing of chlorine-doped polycrystalline CdTe films results in the formation of large secondary grains within a smaller primary grain matrix. Growth kinetics is driven by chlorine drag for both types of grains and modeled within Burke's approach. The activation energy for grain boundary motion is 1.65±0.1 eV, corresponding to the activation energy for chlorine diffusion in CdTe and revealing the occurrence of a diffusion-induced grain boundary migration. The 〈1 0 0〉 texture is enhanced by secondary grain growth but subsequently lessened by the thickening of annealing twins in their center.