New pressure-induced monoclinic β-Sb2Te3 phase with sevenfold symmetry

Abstract

A nanometric Sb2Te3 rhombohedral phase was produced from Sb and Te by mechanical alloying for 3 hours and its structural stability was studied by synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy (RS) measurements as a function of pressure. A phase transformation from the ambient pressure rhombohedral phase into a β-Sb2Te3 monoclinic structure between 9.8 and 13.2 GPa is observed by XRD. This phase transformation is confirmed by the Raman spectroscopy measurements. The pressure dependence of the volume fited to a Birch-Murnaghan equation of state gives a bulk modulus B0 = 40.6 +- 1.5 GPa and B'0 = 5.1 +- 0.6. The bulk modulus of the nano-Sb2Te3 seems to be slightly smaller than that for its bulk counterpart (44.8 GPa).

25 pages, one Table and eight figures