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

Chere, Eyob K.; Zhang, Qian; McEnaney, Kenneth; Yao, Mengliang; Cao, Feng; Sun, Jingying; Chen, Shuo; Opeil, Cyril; Chen, Gang; Ren, Zhifeng

doi:10.1016/j.nanoen.2015.02.026

Enhancement of thermoelectric performance in n-type PbTe_1-ySe_y by doping Cr and tuning Te:Se ratio

Journal Article · Thu Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Nano Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2015.02.026· OSTI ID:1385306

Chere, Eyob K. ^[1]; Zhang, Qian ^[1]; McEnaney, Kenneth ^[2]; Yao, Mengliang ^[3]; Cao, Feng ^[1]; Sun, Jingying ^[1]; Chen, Shuo ^[1]; Opeil, Cyril ^[3]; Chen, Gang ^[2]; Ren, Zhifeng ^[1]

Univ. of Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics. TcSUH
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
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 PbTe_1-ySe_y 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 Cr_0.015Pb_0.985Te_0.75Se_0.25 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 Cr_0.01Pb_0.99Te_0.25Se_0.75. 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 Cr_0.015Pb_0.985Te_0.75Se_0.25 up to ~11% and Se-rich Cr_0.01Pb_0.99Te_0.25Se_0.75 up to ~13% with cold side and hot side temperature at 300 K and 873 K, respectively, if matched with appropriate p-type legs.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0001299

OSTI ID:: 1385306

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1252089

Journal Information:: Nano Energy, Journal Name: Nano Energy Vol. 13; ISSN 2211-2855

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Studies on thermoelectric figure of merit of Na-doped p-type polycrystalline SnSe Chere, Eyob K.; Zhang, Qian; Dahal, Keshab Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 4, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1039/c5ta08847j	journal	January 2016
An in situ eutectic remelting and oxide replacement reaction for superior thermoelectric performance of InSb Xin, Jiwu; Jiang, Qinghui; Wen, Yanwei Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 6, Issue 35 https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ta04876b	journal	January 2018
Thermoelectric properties of Cu ₄ Ge ₃ Se ₅ with an intrinsic disordered zinc blende structure Shan, Bing; Lin, Siqi; Bu, Zhonglin Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 8, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1039/c9ta14068a	journal	January 2020

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Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
Cr doping
Te:Se ratio
average ZT
efficiency
thermoelectric