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Retreat from Stress: Rattling in a Planar Coordination
Author(s) -
Suekuni Koichiro,
Lee Chul Ho,
Tanaka Hiromi I.,
Nishibori Eiji,
Nakamura Atsushi,
Kasai Hidetaka,
Mori Hitoshi,
Usui Hidetomo,
Ochi Masayuki,
Hasegawa Takumi,
Nakamura Mitsutaka,
OhiraKawamura Seiko,
Kikuchi Tatsuya,
Kaneko Koji,
Nishiate Hirotaka,
Hashikuni Katsuaki,
Kosaka Yasufumi,
Kuroki Kazuhiko,
Takabatake Toshiro
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201706230
Subject(s) - materials science , thermal conductivity , phonon , thermoelectric effect , planar , thermoelectric materials , atom (system on chip) , chemical physics , condensed matter physics , composite material , thermodynamics , chemistry , computer science , physics , computer graphics (images) , embedded system
Thermoelectric devices convert heat flow to charge flow, providing electricity. Materials for highly efficient devices must satisfy conflicting requirements of high electrical conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity in caged compounds is known to be suppressed by a large vibration of guest atoms, so‐called rattling, which effectively scatters phonons. Here, the crystal structure and phonon dynamics of tetrahedrites (Cu,Zn) 12 (Sb,As) 4 S 13 are studied. The results reveal that the Cu atoms in a planar coordination are rattling. In contrast to caged compounds, chemical pressure enlarges the amplitude of the rattling vibration in the tetrahedrites so that the rattling atom is squeezed out of the planar coordination. Furthermore, the rattling vibration shakes neighbors through lone pairs of the metalloids, Sb and As, which is responsible for the low thermal conductivity of tetrahedrites. These findings provide a new strategy for the development of highly efficient thermoelectric materials with planar coordination.