Preparation and some physical properties of Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3, and As2Te3

Abstract

The preparation of the intermetallic compounds Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3, and As2Te2 from purified elements by several techniques is discussed. Advantages and disadvantages of the various techniques are enumerated. Electrical and thermal properties are presented as functions of temperature and impurity concentration. The variation of carrier mobility with temperature is approximately T -5 2 for AS2Te3 and Bi2Te3. An anomalous variation of Hall coefficient with temperature is observed. The thermal conductivities of the three compounds are similar. It is suggested that the compounds are necessarily heavily doped semiconductors because Group-V atoms appear on tellurium lattice sites and tellurium atoms appear on Group-V atom lattice sites. © 1957.