Synthesis, transport properties, and electronic structure of Cu2CdSnTe4

Abstract

A new stannite phase was synthesized and its temperature dependent transport properties were investigated. Cu2CdSnTe4 possesses strong p-type conduction, while the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity exhibits typical dielectric behavior. Electronic structure calculations allowed for a description of the transport characteristics in terms the energy band structure, density of states, and Fermi surface. The potential for thermoelectric applications is also discussed.

Thermal Properties

“…19 Interestingly, the κ value at 300 K for Cu 2 CdSnTe 4 is nearly the same as that for CdTe. This fact may suggest good crystalline (or pellet) quality of the Cu 2 CdSnTe 4 sample investigated by Dong et al [49]. Figure 3.30 shows the Lorenz number L versus T plots for Cu 2 CdSnTe 4 .…”

“…Note that all these III-V binary semiconductor data were determined using single-crystalline samples. We note, however, that such pellet samples lead to enhanced phonon scattering and, as a result, a significant reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity and therefore an increase in the thermoelectric figure of merit [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. For example, some point defects, impurities, or even different atoms in alloy materials behave as mass-defect scattering centers that lead to considerable decrease in the thermal conductivity value κ.…”

“…Under high-power sunlight irradiance, thermal management of solar devices is also critically important. Most investigated samples were robust bulk pellets prepared through hot press [40,41,45,47,51], spark plasma sintering/hot press [42,43,46,48], or room-temperature (cold) press [44,49,50]. Thus, the tensor form of κ is the same as that in Table 3.3.…”

“…We plot in Figure 3.29 the temperature dependence of κ for Cu 2 CdSnTe 4 [49], in comparison to those for GaAs [52] and CdTe [53]. In most semiconductors [54], we observe in experiment that the thermal conductivity of a pure single crystal is zero at T = 0 K and rises approximately exponentially to a maximum near 10 K, falls somewhat faster than T −1 , and then varies approximately as T −1 to the melting temperature.…”

“…In most semiconductors [54], we observe in experiment that the thermal conductivity of a pure single crystal is zero at T = 0 K and rises approximately exponentially to a maximum near 10 K, falls somewhat faster than T −1 , and then varies approximately as T −1 to the melting temperature. In [49], for GaAs from Adachi [52], and for CdTe from Adachi [53]. The solid lines show the results calculated using Equation 3.…”