Nanoscale distortions in AgGaTe⌄2 (IMAGE)

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Nanoscale distortions in AgGaTe⌄2

Caption

Nanoscale distortions: The side view of a basic AgGaTe⌄2 building block (left) shows the silver (Ag) atom at the center of a 3D tetrahedron. In the top-down view (center), heating causes Ag to shift off center in one of four directions indicated by the black arrows. A shift toward a particular edge (bold arrow) forces the tellurium (Te) atoms on that edge to move apart (purple arrows) while the Te atoms on the opposite edge move closer together. In the larger crystal lattice, where connected tetrahedra share Te atoms at corners (right), the atomic shifts (black and purple arrows) become correlated, causing adjacent tetrahedra to rotate with respect to one another (red curved arrow).

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Brookhaven National Laboratory

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