Open AccessUltralow Lattice Thermal Conductivity and Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance in SnTe:Ga Materials
Author(s) -
Rabih Al Rahal Al Orabi,
Junphil Hwang,
Chan-Chieh Lin,
Régis Gautier,
Bruno La Fontaine,
Woochul Kim,
JongSoo Rhyee,
Daehyun Wee,
Marco Fornari
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemistry of materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.741
H-Index - 375
eISSN - 1520-5002
pISSN - 0897-4756
DOI - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b04076
Subject(s) - thermoelectric effect , materials science , condensed matter physics , doping , thermal conductivity , thermoelectric materials , thermal conduction , figure of merit , amorphous solid , density functional theory , thermal , lattice (music) , thermodynamics , optoelectronics , chemistry , computational chemistry , crystallography , physics , acoustics , composite material
International audienceUltralow thermal conductivity is of great interest in a variety of fields, including thermoelectric energy conversion. We report, for the first time, experimental evidence that Ga-doping in SnTe may lower the lattice thermal conduction slightly below the theoretical amorphous minimum at high temperature. Such an effect is justified by the spontaneous formation of nanoprecipitates we characterized as GaTe. Remarkably, the introduction of Ga (2-10%) in SnTe also improves the electronic transport properties by activating several hole pockets in the multivalley valence band. Experimental results are supported by density functional theory calculations. The thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, reaches similar to 1 at 873 K in Sn0.96Ga0.07Te, which corresponds to an similar to 80% improvement with respect to pure SnTe
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