Extremely long period-stacking structure in the Sb–Te binary system

The crystal structure of the delta-phase in the Sb-Te binary system has been determined by synchrotron powder diffraction. It is clearly shown that many intermetallic compounds, which have different stacking periods depending on compound composition, exist in this phase. These structures are based on the cubic ABC stacking structure, and two kinds of fundamental structural units form an intergrowth along the stacking direction at the atomic level. The chemical formulae of these compounds are expressed as Sb(2n)Te3, where n is an integer and the number of stacking layers is 2n + 3. There is a relationship of inverse proportionality between the stacking period and the Te concentration.