Photoemission Study of Rare-Earth Ditelluride Compounds (ReTe_2 : Re = La, Pr, Sm, and Gd)

Abstract

We studied the electronic structure of rare-earth ditelluride (ReTe_2 : Re = La, Pr, Sm, and Gd) using photoemission spectroscopy. From the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) study of the 3d core levels of rare-earth elements, we found that all the rare earth elements are trivalent. We have also made theoretical calculations using the Gunnarsson and Schoenhammer approximation and multiplet calculations for the rare earth elements to find that the La and Gd~3d peaks are well explained using our calculations. There is no considerable change in the line-shape of the Te~3d peaks depending on different rare earth elements. On ther other hand, valence band spectra studied with the ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) show a small change in the Te p band depending on rare-earth elements. According to the UPS data, LaTe_2 has very low carrier density at the Fermi level while SmTe_2 and PrTe_2 show strongly metallic band structure effects near the Fermi level.