Band Structure of the IV-VI Black Phosphorus Analog and Thermoelectric SnSe

I. Pletikosić, F. von Rohr, P. Pervan, P. K. Das, I. Vobornik, R. J. Cava, and T. Valla

Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 156403 – Published 10 April 2018

Abstract

The success of black phosphorus in fast electronic and photonic devices is hindered by its rapid degradation in the presence of oxygen. Orthorhombic tin selenide is a representative of group IV-VI binary compounds that are robust and isoelectronic and share the same structure with black phosphorus. We measure the band structure of SnSe and find highly anisotropic valence bands that form several valleys having fast dispersion within the layers and negligible dispersion across. This is exactly the band structure desired for efficient thermoelectric generation where SnSe has shown great promise.

Received 6 July 2017
Revised 29 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.156403

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Electronic structure Semiconductors Thermopower Valleytronics

Phosphorene

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

I. Pletikosić^1,2,*, F. von Rohr³, P. Pervan⁴, P. K. Das^5,6, I. Vobornik⁵, R. J. Cava³, and T. Valla²

¹Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
²Condensed Matter and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA
³Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
⁴Institut za fiziku, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
⁵Istituto Officina dei Materiali (IOM-CNR), Laboratorio TASC, I-34149 Trieste, Italy
⁶International Centre for Theoretical Physics, I-34151 Trieste, Italy