Crystal structure and uses of Indium telluride

Indium telluride is a black solid, it is sometimes described as an intermetallic compound, because it has properties that are metal-like and salt-like. It is a semiconductor that has attracted occasional interest for its thermoelectric and photovoltaic applications.

Crystal structure

Indium telluride has a Cubic Structure - Space Group F(-4)3m.

Uses

Among III-VI materials, indium telluride is well-known as a thermoelectric (TE) material in previous studies. It has been reported that the polycrystalline indium telluride possesses a high TE figure-of-merit (FOM) ZT of 0.9 and ultralow lattice thermal conductivity of ∼0.3–0.4 Wm-1K−1 at a temperature of 600 K, which makes it promising for high-performance TE applications. Besides, bulk indium telluride crystal is a semiconductor with a bandgap of 1.16 eV.

Preparation

Moreover,indium telluride was usually fabricated by Bridgman-Stockbarger method or thermal evaporation in previous studies, resulting in single crystalline bulks or films with a thickness of hundreds of nanometers, which is not applicable for growing ultrathin indium telluride nanosheets.

Up to now, the usual methods to prepare 2D materials, such as mechanical exfoliation or CVD have not been reported for synthesizing 2D indium telluride. The difficulty in the preparation of 2D indium telluride greatly limits its fundamental research and development of device applications.