Silver gallium telluride (AgGaTe2) single crystal: Synthesis, accelerated crucible rotation-Bridgman growth and characterization

A silver gallium telluride single crystal of diameter 12 mm and length 80 mm was successfully grown by the vertical Bridgman method using accelerated crucible rotation technique. To confirm the unit cell parameters of the grown silver gallium telluride (AgGaTe2) crystal, single crystal X-ray diffraction studies were carried out. AgGaTe2 has been studied using differential scanning calorimetry and is found to have supercooling of 13 °C. AgGaTe2 shows Fourier transform infrared transmission in the spectral range of 6000–500 cm−1. The composition of Ag, Ga and Te in the grown crystal was measured with energy dispersive X-ray analysis spectroscopy. The optical band gap for AgGaTe2 is 1.8 eV. In the positron lifetime measurements, the average lifetime 267 ps corresponds to vacancy clusters in AgGaTe2 crystal. Hall measurements confirm p-type nature of AgGaTe2.