Electronic properties of WTe2 and MoTe2 single crystals

Abstract

WTe2 and MoTe2 single crystals were grown, and their electrical resistivity in the temperature range from 80 K to 300 K, optical properties at room temperature in the spectral range of 0.17-5.0 eV were studied as well as theoretical calculations of the electronic structure were performed. It is shown that the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity of orthorhombic WTe2 has a metallic type with resistivity value of (0.5-1) mOhmcm, while hexagonal MoTe2 has a semiconductor one and resistivity value (0.5-1) Ohmcm, which is three orders of magnitude larger than the resistivity of WTe2. Optical properties indicated that there is no contribution from free carriers in the entire spectral range studied. The calculated densities of the electronic states of MoTe2 and WTe2 showed the presence of a bunch of the molybdenum and tungsten electronic states in a wide energy interval with strong admixing of tellurium states. In the WTe2 compound, the larger number of the electronic states is located near the Fermi energy, characterizing a more metallic state in this compound as compared to MoTe2.