Enhancing thermoelectric performance of p-type SnTe through manipulating energy band structures and decreasing electronic thermal conductivity

SnTe has received considerable attention as an environmentally friendly alternative to the representative thermoelectric material of PbTe.However,excessive hole carrier concentration in SnTe results in an extremely low Seebeck coefficient and high thermal conductivity,which makes it exhibit relatively inferior thermoelectric properties.In this work,the thermoelectric performance of p-type SnTe is enhanced through regulating its energy band structures and reducing its electronic thermal conductivity by combining Bi doping with CdSe alloying.First,the carrier concentration of SnTe is successfully suppressed via Bi doping,which significantly decreases the electronic thermal conductivity.Then,the convergence and flattening of the valence bands by alloying CdSe effectively improves the effective mass of SnTe while restraining its carrier mobility.Finally,a maximum figure of merit(ZT) of~ 0.87 at 823 K and an average ZT of~ 0.51 at 300-823 K have been achieved in Sn_(0.96)Bi_(0.04)Te-5%CdSe.Our results indicate that decreasing the electronic thermal conductivity is an effective means of improving the performance of thermoelectric materials with a high carrier concentration.

Enhancing thermoelectric performance of n-type AgBi_(3)S_(5)through synergistically optimizing the effective mass and carrier mobility

AgBi_(3)S_(5) is a new n-type thermoelectric material that is environmentally friendly and composed of elements of earth-abundant,non-toxic and high performance-cost ratio.This compound features an intrinsically low thermal conductivity derived from its complex monoclinic structure.However,the terrible electrical transport properties greatly limited the improvement of thermoelectric performance.Most previous studies considered that carrier concentration is the main reason for low electrical conductivity and focused on improving carrier concentration by aliovalent ion doping.In this work,we found that the critical parameter that restricts the electric transport performance of AgBi_(3)S_(5)was the extremely low carrier mobility instead of the carrier concentration.According to the Pisarenko relationships and density functional theory calculations,Nb doping can sharpen the conduction band of AgBi_(3)S_(5),which contributes to reducing the effective mass and improving the carrier mobility.With a further increase of the Nb doping content,the conduction band convergence can enlarge the effective mass and preserve the carrier mobility.Combined with the decrease in lattice thermal conductivity due to the intensive phone scattering,a maximum ZT value of~0.50 at 773 K was achieved in Ag_(0.97)Nb_(0.03)Bi_(3)S_(5),which was~109.6%higher than that of pure AgBi3S5.This work will stimulate the new exploration of high-performance thermoelectric materials in ternary metal sulfides.