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Title: Enhancement of thermoelectric performance in n-type PbTe1-ySey by doping Cr and tuning Te:Se ratio

Journal Article · · Nano Energy
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics. TcSUH
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
  3. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics

Lead telluride and its alloys have been extensively studied for medium temperature thermoelectric applications due to decent figure-of-merit (ZT) at temperature close to 900 K. However, little emphasis has been given to improve the ZT near room temperature. We report a systematic study of Cr doping in PbTe1-ySey with y=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 0.85, and 1. We found the peak ZT temperature increased with increasing concentration of Se. The highest ZT of ~0.6 at room temperature in Te-rich Cr0.015Pb0.985Te0.75Se0.25 was obtained due to a lowered thermal conductivity and enhanced power factor resulted from high Seebeck coefficient of about -220 µV K-1 and high Hall mobility ~1120 cm2 V-1 s-1 at room temperature. A room temperature ZT of ~0.5 and peak ZT of ~1 at about 573–673 K is shown by Se-rich sample Cr0.01Pb0.99Te0.25Se0.75. This improvement of the room temperature ZT improved the average ZT over a wide temperature range and could potentially lead to a single leg efficiency of thermoelectric conversion for Te-rich Cr0.015Pb0.985Te0.75Se0.25 up to ~11% and Se-rich Cr0.01Pb0.99Te0.25Se0.75 up to ~13% with cold side and hot side temperature at 300 K and 873 K, respectively, if matched with appropriate p-type legs.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0001299
OSTI ID:
1385306
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1252089
Journal Information:
Nano Energy, Vol. 13; ISSN 2211-2855
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 29 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

An in situ eutectic remelting and oxide replacement reaction for superior thermoelectric performance of InSb journal January 2018
Studies on Thermoelectric Properties of n-type Polycrystalline SnSe 1- x S x by Iodine Doping journal April 2015
Thermoelectric properties of Cu 4 Ge 3 Se 5 with an intrinsic disordered zinc blende structure journal January 2020
Charge and phonon transport in PbTe-based thermoelectric materials journal November 2018