STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE NEW DIAMOND-LIKE SEMICONDUCTOR CuNbGaSe3

Abstract

The chalcogenide compound CuNbGaSe3, belonging to the system I-II-III-VI3, has been investigated by means of X-ray powder diffraction and its crystal structure has been refined by the Rietveld method.This is a material of the semiconductor type, which improves the properties of a simple semiconductor like CuGaSe2 because it ads spintronic applications due to its magnetic behavior. The powder pattern was composed by 94.2% of the principal phase CuNbGaSe3 and 5.8% of the secondary phase Cu0.667NbSe2. This material crystallizes with a CuFeInSe3-type structure in the tetragonal space group P4 2c (Nº 112), unit cell parameters a = 5.6199(4) Å, c = 11.0275(2) Å, V = 348.28(4) Å3, with a normal adamantane-structure where occurs a degradation of symmetry from the chalcopyrite structure I4 2d to a related structure P4 2c.