Strategic Design and Mechanistic Understanding of Vacancy‐Filling Heusler Thermoelectric Semiconductors

Abstract

Doping narrow‐gap semiconductors is a well‐established approach for designing efficient thermoelectric materials. Semiconducting half‐Heusler (HH) and full‐Heusler (FH) compounds have garnered significant interest within the thermoelectric field, yet the number of exceptional candidates remains relatively small. It is recently shown that the vacancy‐filling approach is a viable strategy for expanding the Heusler family. Here, a range of near‐semiconducting Heuslers, TiFexCuySb, creating a composition continuum that adheres to the Slater‐Pauling electron counting rule are theoretically designed and experimentally synthesized. The stochastic and incomplete occupation of vacancy sites within these materials imparts continuously changing electrical conductivities, ranging from a good semiconductor with low carrier concentration in the endpoint TiFe0.67Cu0.33Sb to a heavily doped p‐type semiconductor with a stoichiometry of TiFe1.00Cu0.20Sb. The optimal thermoelectric performance is experimentally observed in the intermediate compound TiFe0.80Cu0.28Sb, achieving a peak figure of merit of 0.87 at 923 K. These findings demonstrate that vacancy‐filling Heusler compounds offer substantial opportunities for developing advanced thermoelectric materials.