Indexed by: Journal paper

Co-author: AF Fang, G Xu, T Dong, P Zheng,NL Wang

Journal: Scientific reports

Included Journals: SCI

Discipline: Science

First-Level Discipline: Physics

Document Type: J

Volume: 3

Issue: 1

Page Number: 1153

ISSN No.: 2045-2322

Date of Publication: 2013-01-29

Impact Factor: 5.078

Abstract: Ir 1− x Pt x Te2 is an interesting system showing competing phenomenon between structural instability and superconductivity. Due to the large atomic numbers of Ir and Te, the spin-orbital coupling is expected to be strong in the system which may lead to nonconventional superconductivity. We grew single crystal samples of this system and investigated their electronic properties. In particular, we performed optical spectroscopic measurements, in combination with density function calculations, on the undoped compound IrTe2 in an effort to elucidate the origin of the structural phase transition at 280 K. The measurement revealed a dramatic reconstruction of band structure and a significant reduction of conducting carriers below the phase transition. We elaborate that the transition is not driven by the density wave type instability but caused by the crystal field effect which further splits/separates the energy levels of Te (px, py) and Te pz bands.