Growth, Characterization and Magneto-transport of single crystal Bismuth

Abstract

We report the growth of Bi single crystal via the modified Bridgman technique. The structural and microstructural morphological characterization of the as-grown Bismuth (Bi) single crystal includes Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX). Additionally, the Raman Spectra analysis has been used to study the vibrational modes of the Bi. The UV-Vis spectroscopy has revealed a bulk band gap of approximately 5.23eV in the as-grown Bi crystal. The electrical transport measurements have demonstrated metallic behavior with an R_300K /R_2K (RRR) ratio of around 6.5. However, under the applied field, the as-grown Bi shows change from metallic to semiconducting behavior. The bulk band gap of the as-grown crystal has been indirectly determined based on its semiconducting behavior under the applied magnetic field which increases with the applied field. Notably, at low temperatures (<10K), the synthesized Bi crystal exhibits large magneto-resistance (MR) of the order of ~10⁵% under applied fields up to ±14Tesla as along with Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations.