GROWTH AND CERTAIN CHARACTERIZATIONS OF ZIRCONIUM DITELLURIDE CRYSTALS

In the recent years there has been a considerable interest in the study of the high pressure behavior of solids because of academic, technological and geophysical reasons. The academic interest owes its origin to the fact that at high pressure, the nature of the interatomic forces in matter change considerably. Under extreme pressure fluid lubricants squeeze out from between metting surfaces causing high friction and wear. With lamellar solids such as TMDCs, shearing takes place more easily when loads are high. So lamellar solids are well suited to extreme pressure lubrication. Under normal conditions solids exhibit a particular crystal structure for which the total energy is minimum. However, on application of high pressure, the atomic arrangements in solid changes resulting in changes in interatomic physical behavior of lamellar solids like MX2 (M= Mo, W, Zr, Ta and X= S, Se, Te) under extremely high pressure. Among the latter, very few experimental results are available for ZrTe2 single crystal which is group IV and VI transition metal dichalcogenides.