Thermoelectric alloys between PbSe and PbS with effective thermal conductivity reduction and high figure of merit

Wang, Heng; Wang, Jianli; Cao, Xianlong; Snyder, G. Jeffrey

doi:10.1039/c3ta14929c

Cited by 95 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…In principle, it is different from the barrier scattering mentioned above since the dopants are only incorporated into certain areas, e.g., spatially separated nanograins, leading to reduced electron scattering and thus higher mobility. Improved power factors and figure of merit ZT are experimentally achieved in the Si 95 Ge 5 matrix and the phosphorus-doped Si 70 Ge 30 P 3 nanoparticle phase, where the electrons can spill over from the doped nanoparticle phase into the essentially undoped matrix phase, as shown in Figure 3b. 62 Another strategy on how to apply scattering engineering might be found in topological insulators having a large difference in the relaxation times corresponding to bulk and surface states.…”

Section: Manipulation Of Carrier Scatteringmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Point defect scattering is important for the κ L variations in solid solution of TE material systems as already mentioned, [90][91][92][93][94][95] as well as in the isotope effect. 97,156 It is noteworthy that the solid solutions may also interfere electrical transport, which makes the net increase in ZT values rely on the competition between the mobility loss and the reduction on κ L .…”

Section: From the Conventional Phonon-phonon Interactions To Nanostrumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,88,89 Solid solutions are another time honored approach to enhance point defect scattering. [90][91][92][93][94][95] PPIs, as the intrinsic mechanism and basically the dominant one at high temperatures, have offered limited opportunities for regulation. Recently, thanks to advanced computational capabilities, the understanding on PPIs and their influences on lattice thermal conductivity has been greatly improved.…”

Section: From the Conventional Phonon-phonon Interactions To Nanostrumentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

On the tuning of electrical and thermal transport in thermoelectrics: an integrated theory–experiment perspective

et al. 2016

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During the last two decades, we have witnessed great progress in research on thermoelectrics. There are two primary focuses. One is the fundamental understanding of electrical and thermal transport, enabled by the interplay of theory and experiment; the other is the substantial enhancement of the performance of various thermoelectric materials, through synergistic optimisation of those intercorrelated transport parameters. Here we review some of the successful strategies for tuning electrical and thermal transport. For electrical transport, we start from the classical but still very active strategy of tuning band degeneracy (or band convergence), then discuss the engineering of carrier scattering, and finally address the concept of conduction channels and conductive networks that emerge in complex thermoelectric materials. For thermal transport, we summarise the approaches for studying thermal transport based on phonon-phonon interactions valid for conventional solids, as well as some quantitative efforts for nanostructures. We also discuss the thermal transport in complex materials with chemical-bond hierarchy, in which a portion of the atoms (or subunits) are weakly bonded to the rest of the structure, leading to an intrinsic manifestation of part-crystalline part-liquid state at elevated temperatures. In this review, we provide a summary of achievements made in recent studies of thermoelectric transport properties, and demonstrate how they have led to improvements in thermoelectric performance by the integration of modern theory and experiment, and point out some challenges and possible directions. INTRODUCTION Thermoelectric (TE) materials are materials that can generate useful electric potentials when subjected to a temperature gradient (known as the Seebeck effect). Conversely, they also transfer heat against the temperature gradient when a current is driven against this potential (known as the Peltier effect). They are promising energy materials with many applications, such as waste heat harvesting, radioisotope TE power generation, and solid state Peltier refrigeration, all of which are driving growing research interest. A key challenge is to improve the TE properties in order to obtain more efficient energy conversion and in turn enable new practical applications. Good TE materials must have excellent electrical transport properties, measured by the TE power factor ( = S 2 σ, where S is the Seebeck coefficient and σ is the electrical conductivity), and also a very low thermal conductivity κ (composed of the electronic contribution κ e , the lattice contribution κ L , and the bipolar contribution κ bi ). Combining the two aspects gives us the dimensionless figure of merit ZT,

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Section: Manipulation Of Carrier Scatteringmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: From the Conventional Phonon-phonon Interactions To Nanostrumentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From the Conventional Phonon-phonon Interactions To Nanostrumentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the tuning of electrical and thermal transport in thermoelectrics: an integrated theory–experiment perspective

et al. 2016

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“…For the case of PbSe, if we set U imp of the anion dopants as the relative zero (it is very difficult to accurately determine both U imp and the phonon deformation potential experimentally from mobility data) we could explain the mobility of cation doped PbSe both at and above 300 K, with a U imp of 5 eV. The analogous alloy scattering potential for isovalent substituted alloys were found 49,50 to be mostly around 1 eV, and 13 up to 3 eV for Pb 1Àx Sr x Se. Conceptually, the scattering potential U imp may be considered in the context of Anderson localization: more perturbation is expected if the randomness is concentrated in the wave functions (atomic orbitals) that have more weight on the charge transporting wave function (bands).…”

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confidence: 98%

Higher mobility in bulk semiconductors by separating the dopants from the charge-conducting band – a case study of thermoelectric PbSe

et al. 2015

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In the rigid band approximation dopants in semiconductors only change the Fermi level and carrier concentration such that different dopants are thought equivalent when fully ionized. In this work we examine the small but significant difference in mobility due to the type of dopant in heavily doped PbSe by studying n-type samples doped with Br, In and Bi. We propose that cation and anion dopants lead to a difference in mobility at high concentrations. This can be understood considering the predominance of cation states to the conduction band and anion states to the valence band. For higher mobility and better performance for most applications of heavily doped semiconductors, dopants should be on the site that is of less influence on the chargeconducting band. This concept can be viewed as an analog of modulation doping on the atomic level. Its physical origin is the random potential due to disorder that perturbs carriers, which is also the origin of Anderson localization at low temperature, a well-studied topic in theoretical physics. In thermoelectric PbSe, the selection of dopant can lead to 10% difference in mobility and in zT.

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“…[1,3] Majority of IV-VI compounds tend to be dominant thermoelectric materials in the medium-temperature (500-900 K) range; these include most of lead chalcogenides (PbTe, [4][5][6][7][8] PbSe, [9,10] and PbS [11,12]), and tin chalcogenides (SnTe, [13,14] SnSe, [15][16][17] and SnS [18]). In addition, many mixtures composed of these compounds, such as PbTe-PbSe alloys, [19][20][21] PbTe-PbS alloys, [22,23] PbSe-PbS alloys, [24,25] SnSe-SnS alloys, [26] and PbTerich quaternary alloys of PbTe-PbSe-PbS, [27,28] have been extensively studied for further improving their performance. However, solid solutions on a simple underlying lattice have been much less frequently considered for thermoelectric applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermoelectric performance of PbSnTeSe high-entropy alloys

Fan

Wang

et al. 2016

Materials Research Letters

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In our study, we designed the PbSnTeSe high-entropy alloy (HEA) and investigated its microstructure and thermoelectric properties. It was found that the PbSnTeSe HEA has a simple face-centered cubic structure and possesses quite low lattice thermal conductivity at low temperatures, which could be ascribed to the strong phonon scattering due to its severe lattice-distortion. Minor additions of La not only enhanced both Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity at high temperatures, but also suppressed the bipolar effect to some degree. Our results indicate that the HEA concept could be applied for developing promising thermoelectric materials, which merits further investigation. IMPACT STATEMENTThe high-entropy alloy-design concept was employed to develop novel thermoelectric materials. Our findings indicate that this strategy effectively reduced the lattice thermal conductivity, which have important implications for the field. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Thermoelectric alloys between PbSe and PbS with effective thermal conductivity reduction and high figure of merit

Cited by 95 publications

References 71 publications

On the tuning of electrical and thermal transport in thermoelectrics: an integrated theory–experiment perspective

On the tuning of electrical and thermal transport in thermoelectrics: an integrated theory–experiment perspective

Higher mobility in bulk semiconductors by separating the dopants from the charge-conducting band – a case study of thermoelectric PbSe

Thermoelectric performance of PbSnTeSe high-entropy alloys

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