XAFS studies of local atomic structure of niobium tellurides

Abstract We present XAFS (K-edge) studies of the local atomic structure around the Nb and Te ions in niobium tellurides (NbTe 2 , Nb 3 Te 4 and NbTe 4 ) in comparison with ZrTe 2 . Using a multi-shell best-fit analysis procedure, we have reconstructed local environments of the Nb and Te ions and compared them with the existing structural models. We found that at the Nb K-edge the XAFS data of NbTe 4 are extremely sensitive to metal clustering and to the subsequent departure from the average crystallographic positions. Moreover, at the Te K-edge the XAFS data allowed us to distinguished the different type of TeTe bonds, for instance: the dimer (TeTe: 2.9 A) and the squares (TeTe: 3.3 A) i…