Electronic Transport Properties of Carrier Controlled SnSe Single Crystals

TL;DR

This study investigates how oxygen contamination affects the electronic transport properties of SnSe single crystals, revealing that oxidation leads to metallic behavior, while controlled synthesis yields semiconducting properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates that oxygen contamination influences SnSe's electronic properties and shows how starting material form affects the resulting crystal's behavior.

Findings

Oxygen contamination causes metallic behavior in SnSe.

Grain Sn leads to semiconducting SnSe, powder Sn results in metallic SnSe.

Surface oxidation of raw Sn is linked to electronic property changes.

Abstract

We found that the electronic transport property of SnSe single crystals was sensitive to oxygen content. Semiconducting SnSe single crystals were obtained by using Sn of grain form as a starting material while powder Sn resulted in metallic SnSe. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed that the surfaces of raw Sn were oxidized, where the volume fraction was relatively low in grain Sn. This demonstrates that contamination of oxygen causes metallic behavior in grown SnSe single crystals.