Transport properties of undoped and Br-doped PbTe sintered at high temperature and pressure> 4.0 GPa

Journal Article · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2009 · Journal of Solid State Chemistry

OSTI ID:979205

Yongkwan, Dong ^[1]; McGuire, Michael A ^[2]; Malik, Abds-Sami ^[3]; DiSalvo, Francis J. ^[1]

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1. Cornell University
2. ORNL
3. Diamond Innovations, Inc.

The thermoelectric properties of nominally undoped PbTe and Br doped PbTe materials sintered at high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) have been studied. All samples show n-type semiconducting behavior with negative thermopower. For undoped PbTe, four different HPHT treatments were performed at pressures between 4.0 and 6.5 GPa. PbTe doped with Br at 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 x 10{sup 19} cm{sup -3} was HPHT treated at 4.0 GPa and 1045 C. As the dopant concentration increases, the absolute thermopower decreases, thermal conductivity increases, and electrical resistivity decreases. At a nominal dopant concentration of 1.0 x 10{sup 19} cm{sup -3}, carrier mobility of 1165 cm{sup 2}/V s and dimensionless thermoelectric figure-of-merit, ZT, of around 0.27 at 300 K were obtained. These results demonstrate that HPHT post-processing is a viable and controllable way of tuning the thermoelectric properties of PbTe-based materials.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: SC USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 979205
• Journal Information: Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Journal Name: Journal of Solid State Chemistry Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 182; ISSN 0022-4596; ISSN JSSCBI
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CARRIER MOBILITY
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
PERFORMANCE
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMOELECTRIC PROPERTIES
TRANSPORT
TUNING