Growth and examination of non-linear electrical behavior of bulk lead-tin-selenide

The design and development of topological insulators (TIs) as well as novel Dirac materials including Weyl semimetals has expanded a new field of condensed matter physics due to their potential applications in spin-electronics, quantum computing, and thermoelectrical device. Various new materials have been proposed and investigated, however, Pb and Sn based topological insulators are a top choice mainly due to the tunable nature of chemical potential, easy transformation from trivial insulating to topologically nontrivial behavior, and relatively low temperature growth. Earlier this material has been widely investigated in the bulk form as well as in its nanocrystalline form. Pb/Sn ratio is a great factor that control the morphology as well as phase purity of the material. In this present study, we investigate the many different substitutional solid solutions of Sn, Pb, and Se of varying compositions and their associated morphology. The phase and structural analyses of selected samples were also performed with the help of the X-Ray diffractometer and Raman spectrophotometer, to confirm the purity of the material, prior to electrical examination. The non-linear behavior of bulk sample was systematically studied.