Effect of Fe on Bi2Te3: Structure, magnetic properties, and XPS valence band

•Rietveld refinement results show a decreased in volume due to the decrease in c lattice parameter as iron is introduced.•The deconvolution process of the high resolution XPS spectra of Fe 3d shows that the Fe3+ ion is present in the samples.•Theoretical calculations by DFT reveal that the Bi2Te3 compound is a semiconductor with a narrow energy band gap in agreement with experimental results.•Magnetic susceptibility measurements on Bi2Te3 do not show a magnetic behavior; however, for the doped sample with x = 0.2, a weak ferromagnetic behavior (WFM) below 14 K is observed.