Effect of the Valence of Impurity Atoms on the Nature of the Chemical Bond in Tin Dioxide

Elusive β-Zn8Sb7: A New Zinc Antimonide Thermoelectric

“…Among many potential systems, including clathrates, skutterudites, Heusler and half-Heusler alloys, A 14 MSb 11 -type antimonides, and chalcogenides, the Zn–Sb system was intensively investigated due to the abundance, low cost and low toxicity of raw materials and promising thermoelectric characteristics. Three compounds in the narrow range of 50–60 atomic % of Zn were reported in the binary Zn–Sb phase diagram: ZnSb, Zn 4 Sb 3 (which is actually Zn 13 Sb 10 ), and Zn 3 Sb 2 . Zn 3 Sb 2 is metastable phase at room temperature.…”

The Structure of α-Zn4Sb3: Ordering of the Phonon-Glass Thermoelectric Material β-Zn4Sb3

“…The key to the high thermoelectric performance lies in the exceptional thermal conductivity, which is as low as that for glasslike materials . Although β-Zn 4 Sb 3 was already discovered in the late 1960s and subsequently structurally characterized, the nature of its peculiar thermal conductivity behavior remained unknown. Very recently Snyder et al and Cargoni et al provided a plausible reason for this phenomenon when identifying a high degree of intricate disorder in the Zn substructure of β-Zn 4 Sb 3 .…”

Enhancement of thermoelectric performance of β-Zn4Sb3 through resonant distortion of electronic density of states doped with Gd

“…Although b-Zn 4 Sb 3 was already discovered and studied for decades, a complete view on its true crystal structure was presented only recently. [27][28][29] Cargnoni et al 30 had proposed a recognized model that consists of three types of structures to simplify the practical structure, it was noted that the three types of structures have very similar DOS regardless of the zinc content and structure. 31 Hence, for simplicity, we utilized the crystal structure of a hypothetical disorder-free b-Zn 4 Sb 3 with a framework of Zn 36 Sb 30 , one of the basic structures in Cargnoni's model.…”