Growth and characterization of SnSe and SnSe2 single crystals

This paper reports the growth of tin monoselenide (SnSe) and tin diselenide (SnSe2) single crystals by Bridgman-Stockbarger technique. Different rates of lowering ranging from 4 to 10 mm/h were used and it has been observed that reasonable quality crystals (dislocation density 104 -105 cm-2 could be grown at a rate of 7mm/h for SnSe and 4mm/h for SnSe2. A new dislocation etchant capable of revealing dislocations intersecting the (001) cleavage plane has been reported in the case of SnSe and electrical conductivity and optical band gap of both crystals are compared with previous reports.