skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Ultralow Thermal Conductivity, Multiband Electronic Structure and High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit in TlCuSe

Journal Article · · Advanced Materials
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [6];  [1];  [7];  [1]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
  2. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Wuhan Univ. of Technology (China)
  3. Department of Physics University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109 USA
  4. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States); Univ. of Crete, Heraklion (Greece)
  5. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. College London, Bloomsbury (United Kingdom)
  6. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  7. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

Abstract The entanglement of lattice thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and Seebeck coefficient complicates the process of optimizing thermoelectric performance in most thermoelectric materials. Semiconductors with ultralow lattice thermal conductivities and high power factors at the same time are scarce but fundamentally interesting and practically important for energy conversion. Herein, an intrinsic p‐type semiconductor TlCuSe that has an intrinsically ultralow thermal conductivity (0.25 W m −1 K −1 ), a high power factor (11.6 µW cm −1 K −2 ), and a high figure of merit, ZT (1.9) at 643 K is described. The weak chemical bonds, originating from the filled antibonding orbitals p‐d* within the edge‐sharing CuSe 4 tetrahedra and long TlSe bonds in the PbClF‐type structure, in conjunction with the large atomic mass of Tl lead to an ultralow sound velocity. Strong anharmonicity, coming from Tl + lone‐pair electrons, boosts phonon–phonon scattering rates and further suppresses lattice thermal conductivity. The multiband character of the valence band structure contributing to power factor enhancement benefits from the lone‐pair electrons of Tl + as well, which modify the orbital character of the valence bands, and pushes the valence band maximum off the Γ ‐point, increasing the band degeneracy. The results provide new insight on the rational design of thermoelectric materials.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0014520; DE‐AC02‐05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1840969
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1822530
Journal Information:
Advanced Materials, Vol. 33, Issue 44; ISSN 0935-9648
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (70)

Realizing high figure of merit in heavy-band p-type half-Heusler thermoelectric materials journal September 2015
Lattice thermal conductivity of semiconductors: A chemical bond approach journal January 1970
Self-Consistent Phonon Formulation of Anharmonic Lattice Dynamics journal January 1970
Rationally Designing High-Performance Bulk Thermoelectric Materials journal August 2016
Nano-microstructural control of phonon engineering for thermoelectric energy harvesting journal March 2018
Theory of the Self-Consistent Harmonic Approximation with Application to Solid Neon journal July 1966
Projector augmented-wave method journal December 1994
Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential journal May 2003
The Principles Determining the Structure of Complex Ionic Crystals journal April 1929
Role of metal d states in II-VI semiconductors journal May 1988
Isotope Effect on the Thermal Conductivity of Boron Nitride Nanotubes journal August 2006
Nanostructuring, Compositional Fluctuations, and Atomic Ordering in the Thermoelectric Materials AgPbmSbTe2+m. The Myth of Solid Solutions journal June 2005
Multiple-Filled Skutterudites: High Thermoelectric Figure of Merit through Separately Optimizing Electrical and Thermal Transports journal May 2011
BiCuSeO oxyselenides: new promising thermoelectric materials journal January 2014
Thermoelectric transport and microstructure of optimized Mg 2 Si 0.8 Sn 0.2 journal January 2015
The best thermoelectric. journal July 1996
From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method journal January 1999
n-Type SnSe 2 Oriented-Nanoplate-Based Pellets for High Thermoelectric Performance journal December 2017
Convergence of electronic bands for high performance bulk thermoelectrics journal May 2011
Virtual Issue on Thermoelectric Materials journal April 2016
The Elastic Behaviour of a Crystalline Aggregate journal May 1952
Band Engineering of Thermoelectric Materials journal October 2012
Observation of Anderson Localization in an Electron Gas journal May 1969
Lattice Softening Significantly Reduces Thermal Conductivity and Leads to High Thermoelectric Efficiency journal April 2019
Thermoelectric Materials, Phenomena, and Applications: A Bird's Eye View journal March 2006
High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures journal September 2012
Erratum: “Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential” [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 8207 (2003)] journal June 2006
Resonant levels in bulk thermoelectric semiconductors journal January 2012
Electronic and structural anomalies in lead chalcogenides journal May 1997
Intrinsic Rattler-Induced Low Thermal Conductivity in Zintl Type TlInTe 2 journal March 2017
Improved thermoelectric figure of merit of self-doped Ag 8- x GeTe 6 compounds with glass-like thermal conductivity: Improved thermoelectric figure of merit of self-doped Ag 8- x GeTe 6 compounds with glass-like thermal conductivity journal November 2010
Dimensional Reduction: A Design Tool for New Radiation Detection Materials journal August 2011
Phonon engineering through crystal chemistry journal January 2011
All-Inorganic Halide Perovskites as Potential Thermoelectric Materials: Dynamic Cation off-Centering Induces Ultralow Thermal Conductivity journal April 2020
Lattice Anharmonicity and Thermal Conductivity from Compressive Sensing of First-Principles Calculations journal October 2014
Designing chemical analogs to PbTe with intrinsic high band degeneracy and low lattice thermal conductivity journal February 2019
LI. A new treatment of anharmonicity in lattice thermodynamics: I journal April 1955
Ultralow thermal conductivity and high thermoelectric figure of merit in SnSe crystals journal April 2014
Electronic properties of energy harvesting Cu-chalcogenides: p–d hybridization and d-electron localization journal October 2015
Advances in thermoelectric materials research: Looking back and moving forward journal September 2017
Cu-based thermoelectric materials journal April 2016
Computational evaluation of new lithium-3 garnets for lithium-ion battery applications as anodes, cathodes, and solid-state electrolytes journal February 2019
ShengBTE: A solver of the Boltzmann transport equation for phonons journal June 2014
The Origin of Ultralow Thermal Conductivity in InTe: Lone-Pair-Induced Anharmonic Rattling journal February 2016
Impact of Rattlers on Thermal Conductivity of a Thermoelectric Clathrate: A First-Principles Study journal March 2015
Quantum Dot Superlattice Thermoelectric Materials and Devices journal September 2002
Thinking Like a Chemist: Intuition in Thermoelectric Materials journal April 2016
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Low Sound Velocity Contributing to the High Thermoelectric Performance of Ag 8 SnSe 6 journal July 2016
Partial indium solubility induces chemical stability and colossal thermoelectric figure of merit in Cu 2 Se journal January 2017
Ab initio molecular dynamics for open-shell transition metals journal November 1993
A phase-analytical study of the TlCuSe system journal September 1987
First principles phonon calculations in materials science journal November 2015
Avoided crossing of rattler modes in thermoelectric materials journal August 2008
Intrinsically Minimal Thermal Conductivity in Cubic IVVI2 Semiconductors journal July 2008
Resonant States in the Electronic Structure of the High Performance Thermoelectrics A g P b m S b T e 2 + m : The Role of Ag-Sb Microstructures journal September 2004
Restoring the Density-Gradient Expansion for Exchange in Solids and Surfaces journal April 2008
Role of Lone-Pair Electrons in Producing Minimum Thermal Conductivity in Nitrogen-Group Chalcogenide Compounds journal November 2011
The rise of self-consistent phonon theory journal November 1972
High Performance Thermoelectrics from Earth-Abundant Materials: Enhanced Figure of Merit in PbS by Second Phase Nanostructures journal December 2011
Localization of Propagative Phonons in a Perfectly Crystalline Solid journal July 2014
Die Begegnung von Chemie und Physik im Festkörper journal September 1987
Low-dimensional thermoelectric materials journal May 1999
CsMBi 3 Te 6 and CsM 2 Bi 3 Te 7 (M = Pb, Sn):  New Thermoelectric Compounds with Low-Dimensional Structures journal March 2002
High thermoelectric performance of p-BiSbTe compounds prepared by ultra-fast thermally induced reaction journal January 2017
Hierarchical Chemical Bonds Contributing to the Intrinsically Low Thermal Conductivity in α-MgAgSb Thermoelectric Materials journal October 2016
Bulk nanostructured thermoelectric materials: current research and future prospects journal January 2009
Phonon-glass electron-crystal thermoelectric clathrates: Experiments and theory journal June 2014
Recent developments in thermoelectric materials journal February 2003
Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics journal March 2012