Silver telluride (Ag₂Te) is a chemical compound, a telluride of

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

, also known as disilver telluride or silver(I) telluride. It forms a

monoclinic In crystallography, the monoclinic crystal system is one of the seven crystal systems. A crystal system is described by three vectors. In the monoclinic system, the crystal is described by vectors of unequal lengths, as in the orthorhombic s ...

crystal. In a wider sense, ''silver telluride'' can be used to denote AgTe (silver(II) telluride, a

metastable In chemistry and physics, metastability denotes an intermediate energetic state within a dynamical system other than the system's state of least energy. A ball resting in a hollow on a slope is a simple example of metastability. If the ball i ...

compound) or Ag₅Te₃. Silver(I) telluride occurs naturally as the mineral hessite, whereas silver(II) telluride is known as empressite. Silver telluride is a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

which can be doped both n-type and p-type. Stoichiometric Ag₂Te has n-type conductivity. On heating silver is lost from the material.

Non-stoichiometric In chemistry, non-stoichiometric compounds are chemical compounds, almost always solid inorganic compounds, having elemental composition whose proportions cannot be represented by a ratio of small natural numbers (i.e. an empirical formula); m ...

silver telluride has shown extraordinary magnetoresistance.

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Related materials