Dual Alloying Strategy to Achieve a High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit and Lattice Hardening in p-Type Nanostructured PbTe

Sarkar, Sumanta; Zhang, Xiaomi; Hao, Shiqiang; Hua, Xia; Bailey, Trevor P.; Uher, Ctirad; Wolverton, Chris; Dravid, Vinayak P.; Kanatzidis, Mercouri G.

doi:10.1021/acsenergylett.8b01684

Dual Alloying Strategy to Achieve a High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit and Lattice Hardening in p-Type Nanostructured PbTe

Journal Article · Wed Sep 26 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · ACS Energy Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.8b01684· OSTI ID:1775433

Sarkar, Sumanta ^[1]; Zhang, Xiaomi ^[2]; Hao, Shiqiang ^[2]; Hua, Xia ^[2]; Bailey, Trevor P. ^[3]; Uher, Ctirad ^[3]; ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[2]

Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Northwestern University
Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

The introduction of an alkaline earth metal telluride as a second phase in PbTe can lead to very high thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, as a result of hierarchical structuring, e.g., in the PbTe-SrTe system. However, there are two roadblocks to this strategy: poor solubility and occurrence of incoherent nanoprecipitates in the PbTe matrix, e.g., the PbTe-BaTe system. Here we demonstrate a dual alloying approach by simultaneously alloying CaTe and BaTe in the p-type PbTe matrix to achieve ZT_max ranging up to ~2.2 at high temperatures. Synergistic enhancement of the Seebeck coefficient via favorable band convergence gives rise to higher power factors up to 34 μW cm^-1 K^-2 and significant suppression of lattice thermal conductivity, κ_L, down to ~0.6 W m^-1 K^-1 results from large multicenter phonon scattering. In addition, co-inclusion of Ca and Ba causes unanticipated lattice hardening in otherwise brittle PbTe, essential for practical device applications.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)

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

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0014520

OSTI ID:: 1775433

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1611081

Journal Information:: ACS Energy Letters, Journal Name: ACS Energy Letters Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 3; ISSN 2380-8195

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Dual Alloying Strategy to Achieve a High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit and Lattice Hardening in p-Type Nanostructured PbTe

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