Achieving higher thermoelectric performance of n-type PbTe by adjusting the band structure and enhanced phonon scattering

Wei Wu; Chen Zhu; Hongwei Ming; Tao Chen; Di Li; Xiaoying Qin; Jian Zhang

doi:10.1039/d2nr04419f

Achieving higher thermoelectric performance of n-type PbTe by adjusting the band structure and enhanced phonon scattering

Nanoscale. 2022 Dec 1;14(46):17163-17169. doi: 10.1039/d2nr04419f.

Authors

Wei Wu^{1

2}, Chen Zhu^{1

2}, Hongwei Ming^{1

2}, Tao Chen^{1

2}, Di Li^{1

2}, Xiaoying Qin^{1

2}, Jian Zhang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Lab of Photovoltaic and Energy Conservation Materials, Institute of Solid State Physics, HFIPS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, P. R. China. zhangjian@issp.ac.cn.
² University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

PMID: 36374160
DOI: 10.1039/d2nr04419f

Abstract

Due to the very distinct electronic band structure and lower power factor, the exploration of n-type PbTe as thermoelectric materials has historically fallen behind that of p-type PbTe. In this work, n-type Pb_0.97Sb_0.03Te-based composites incorporated with Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ nanoparticles are synthesized and investigated. Sb doping is utilized to modify its carrier concentration in order to obtain n-type PbTe materials with a high power factor. Then, the incorporation of Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ nanoparticles can generate semi-coherent nanophase CuTe, and simultaneously optimize the thermal and electrical properties due to remarkable energy filtering effects and interface scattering in the higher temperature range. Eventually, a peak figure of merit ZT ≈ 1.58 was obtained at 773 K for the sample Pb_0.97Sb_0.03Te + 1.5 wt% Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃, indicating that the incorporation of Cu₁₂Sb₄S₁₃ in Pb_0.97Sb_0.03Te is an effective approach to improve its thermoelectric performance.