Surface tension and contact angles of molten cadmium telluride

The surface tension and contact angle of molten cadmium telluride (CdTe) were measured as a function of temperature by the sessile drop technique. A FORTRAN code was developed to calculate the surface tension of sessile drops, with the contact angle ranging from O to 180°. The wetting of cadmium telluride melt was studied on different surfaces. The surface tension of cadmium telluride was about 160 ±5 dynes · cm^–1[1.6 m^–1] at the melting point of 1093°C. The contact angle of CdTe melt was about 65° on a quartz optical flat, 75° on commercial fused quartz, and 125° on boron nitride coated quartz.Paper presented at the Tenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 20–23, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.