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A pressure induced semiconductor-semimetal phase transition on tungsten diselenide has been studied using in situ electrical resistivity measurement and first-principles calculation under high pressure. The experimental results indicate that the phase transition takes place at 38.1 GPa. The first-principles calculations performed by CASTEP code based on the density functional theory illustrate that the indirect band gap of WSe 2 vanishes at 35 GPa, which results in an isostructural phase transition from semiconductor to semimetal in WSe 2 . According to the pressure dependence of partial density of states, the semimetallic character of WSe 2 is mainly caused by W-Se covalent bonding rather than van der Waals bonding.

In this work, we report the pressure-dependent electrical transport and structural properties of SnSe. In our experiments an electronic transition from a semiconducting to semimetallic state was observed at 12.6 GPa, followed by an orthorhombic to monoclinic structural transition. Hall effect measurements indicate that both the carrier concentration and mobility vary abnormally accompanied by the semimetallic electronic transition. First-principles band structure calculations confirm the semiconducting-semimetallic transition, and reveal that the semimetallic character of SnSe can be attributed to the enhanced coupling of Sn-5s, Sn-5p, and Se-3p orbitals under compression that results in the broadening of energy bands and subsequently the closure of the band gap. The pressure modulated variations of electrical transport and structural properties may provide an approach to improving the thermoelectric properties of SnSe.

The high-pressure electrical transport behavior of microcrystalline tungsten trioxides (WO3) was investigated by direct current electrical resistivity measurement and alternate current impedance spectrum techniques in a diamond anvil cell up to 35.5 GPa. Discontinuous changes of electrical resistivity occurred during the pressure induced structure phase transitions at 1.8, 21.2, and 30.4 GPa. The irreversible resistivity reveals that the structure phase transition is not reversible. In addition, the abnormal changes of bulk resistance and transport activation energy at about 3 and 10 GPa are related to the isostructural phase transition reported by previous Raman study. The temperature induced resistivity change indicates that WO3 is a semiconductor from ambient pressure to 25.3 GPa.