Pressure induced semiconducting to metallic transition in Te

Self consistent electronic band structure calculations both at ambient and at high pressure phases on Te have been carried out using the tight binding linear muffintin orbital TB-(LMTO) method. Reported here, apart from the energy band calculations, are the density of states and Fermi Energies at different pressures for different high pressure phases such as hexagonal [Te(I)], monoclinic [Te(II)], and orthorhombic [Te-(III)], beta-Po rhombohedral [Te(IV)], bcc[Te(V)] etc. Our results show that. the pressure induced semiconducting to metallic transition occurs at about 4 GPa which corresponds to the hexagonal to monoclinic transition. The results also predict the metallic nature of other higher pressure phases.