Off-stoichiometric silver antimony telluride: An experimental study of transport properties with intrinsic and extrinsic doping
Abstract
AgSbTe2 is a thermoelectric semiconductor with an intrinsically low thermal conductivity and a valence band structure that is favorable to obtaining a high thermoelectric figure of merit zT. It also has a very small energy gap Eg ~ 7.6 ± 3 meV. As this gap is less than the thermal excitation energy at room temperature, near-intrinsic AgSbTe2 is a two carrier system having both holes (concentration p) and electrons (n). Good thermoelectric performance requires heavy p-type doping (p > > n). This can be achieved with native defects or with extrinsic doping, e.g. with transition metal element. The use of defect doping is complicated by the fact that many of the ternary Ag-Sb-Te and pseudo-binary Sb2Te3-Ag2Te phase diagrams are contradictory. This paper determines the compositional region most favorable to creating a single phase material. Through a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic doping, values of zT > 1 are achieved, though not on single-phased material. In addition, we show that thermal conductivity is not affected by defects, further demonstrating that the low lattice thermal conductivity of I-V-VI2 materials is due to an intrinsic mechanism, insensitive to changes in defect structure.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC), Washington, D.C. (United States). Revolutionary Materials for Solid State Energy Conversion (RMSSEC)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1174085
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1370336; OSTI ID: 1420647
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001054
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- AIP Advances
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: AIP Advances Journal Volume: 5 Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2158-3226
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Citation Formats
Nielsen, Michele D., Jaworski, Christopher M., and Heremans, Joseph P. Off-stoichiometric silver antimony telluride: An experimental study of transport properties with intrinsic and extrinsic doping. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1063/1.4916217.
Nielsen, Michele D., Jaworski, Christopher M., & Heremans, Joseph P. Off-stoichiometric silver antimony telluride: An experimental study of transport properties with intrinsic and extrinsic doping. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4916217
Nielsen, Michele D., Jaworski, Christopher M., and Heremans, Joseph P. Fri .
"Off-stoichiometric silver antimony telluride: An experimental study of transport properties with intrinsic and extrinsic doping". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4916217.
@article{osti_1174085,
title = {Off-stoichiometric silver antimony telluride: An experimental study of transport properties with intrinsic and extrinsic doping},
author = {Nielsen, Michele D. and Jaworski, Christopher M. and Heremans, Joseph P.},
abstractNote = {AgSbTe2 is a thermoelectric semiconductor with an intrinsically low thermal conductivity and a valence band structure that is favorable to obtaining a high thermoelectric figure of merit zT. It also has a very small energy gap Eg ~ 7.6 ± 3 meV. As this gap is less than the thermal excitation energy at room temperature, near-intrinsic AgSbTe2 is a two carrier system having both holes (concentration p) and electrons (n). Good thermoelectric performance requires heavy p-type doping (p > > n). This can be achieved with native defects or with extrinsic doping, e.g. with transition metal element. The use of defect doping is complicated by the fact that many of the ternary Ag-Sb-Te and pseudo-binary Sb2Te3-Ag2Te phase diagrams are contradictory. This paper determines the compositional region most favorable to creating a single phase material. Through a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic doping, values of zT > 1 are achieved, though not on single-phased material. In addition, we show that thermal conductivity is not affected by defects, further demonstrating that the low lattice thermal conductivity of I-V-VI2 materials is due to an intrinsic mechanism, insensitive to changes in defect structure.},
doi = {10.1063/1.4916217},
journal = {AIP Advances},
number = 5,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4916217
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Cited by: 8 works
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Figures / Tables:
FIG. 1: Area on the modified ternary diagram indicating samples that show no endothermic or exothermic reaction in the 300-750 K temperature range (blue diamonds). This is surrounded by an area of where small amounts of second phase is indicated (green triangles). Larger variations of composition show an increasing amountmore »
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Figures / Tables found in this record:
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.