Correlation of Hall and Shubnikov-de Haas Oscillations and Impurity States in Sn- and I- Doped Single Crystals p-Bi₂Te₃

Oscillations of the Hall coefficient and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) were observed in p-Bi₂Te₃ crystals doped with Sn (acceptor) and with I (donor) in magnetic fields up to 9 T parallel to the C3 trigonal axis at low temperatures (2 K < T < 20K), which is an evidence of the spatial homogeneity of carriers in complex solid solutions. This supports the existence of a narrow band of Sn states (partially filled) against the background of the valence band acting as a reservoir with high density of states partially filled with electrons. Previously, in these systems in which the Fermi level was in the light-hole valence band, both large Hall and SdH oscillations were observed, with ∼π phase shift between them, whereas when the Fermi level was in the heavy-hole valence band (larger acceptor content), no quantum oscillations were observed. It was concluded that the observed low amplitude quantum oscillations may be attributed to the shifting of the reservoir from the light-hole band to the heavy-hole, and the observed phase shift in the range 0 - π/2 between Hall and SdH oscillations may be attributed to filling factor of the reservoir with electrons, which varies with I content. Experimental results along with theoretical explanation of these correlations are presented. (paper)