SINGLE-CRYSTAL ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITIES OF SOME TA-RICH CHALCOGENIDES

Vapor phase transport synthesis of several Ta-rich chalcogenides affords us good single crystals for four-probe measurements of their electrical resistivities. A comparison of the temperature dependent resistivities of Ta2S and Ta3S2 show that the latter compound is a considerably poorer conductor for all temperatures from 15 to 270 K, as predicted in our earlier band structure study of these materials and consistent with the recent workof Nozaki and coworkers. In both cases, resistivities were measured along the direction parallel to the 1x [Ta5Ta] chains that serve as these materials' basic structural building blocks. The compounds Ta9M2S6 (M = Fe, Co, Ni) show normal metallic behavior over the same range of temperatures. A distortion that leads to a doubling of the c-axis length for the Fe and Co containing compounds seems to have no significant effect on the electronic density of states at the Fermi level in either material. In contrast, the compounds Ta11M2Se8 (M = Fe, Co, Ni) exhibit markedly different resistivities as a function of temperature. While Ta11Fe2Se8 and Ta11Ni2Se8 behave much like the structurally similar Ta9M2S6 compounds, the resistivity of Ta11Co2Se8 shows a curiously weak temperature dependence and a high residual value at the lowest temperatures of measurement (15 K). Powder diffraction data for this compound suggests that crystals prepared at low temperature have lower symmetry than the Pnnm space group originally reported. © 1993 Academic Press, Inc.