A Recipe for a Great Meal: A Benchtop Route from Elemental Se to Superior Thermoelectric β-Ag2Se

Abusa, Yao; Yox, Philip; Viswanathan, Gayatri; Opare-Addo, Jemima; Sarkar, Arka; Kyveryga, Victoria; Smith, Emily; Lebedev, Oleg I.; Kovnir, Kirill

doi:10.1021/jacs.4c01161

Title: A Recipe for a Great Meal: A Benchtop Route from Elemental Se to Superior Thermoelectric β-Ag₂Se

Journal Article · 11 April 2024 · Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c01161 · OSTI ID:2341301

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^[2]; Opare-Addo, Jemima ^[2]; Sarkar, Arka ^[2];

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^[2]; Lebedev, Oleg I. ^[3];

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Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
Ames Lab., and Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (France). Laboratoire de Cristallographie et Sciences des Matériaux (CRISMAT)

The low-temperature modification of β-Ag₂Se has proven to be useful as a near-room-temperature thermoelectric material. Over the past years, research has been devoted to interstitial, vacancy, and substitutional doping into the parent β-Ag₂Se structure, aiming at tuning the material’s charge and heat transport properties to enhance thermoelectric performance. The transformation of β-Ag₂Se into α-Ag₂Se at ~134 °C and the low solubility of dopants are the main obstacles for the doping approach. Herein, we report a facile, safe, scalable, and cost-effective benchtop approach to successfully produce metal-doped β-Ag₂Se. The doped materials display a remarkable enhancement of thermoelectric performance with a record-high peak zT of 1.30 at 120 °C and an average zT of ~1.15 in the 25–120 °C range for 0.2 at. % Zn-doped Ag₂Se. The enhancement in zT is attributed to point defects created by Zn doping into Ag vacancies/interstitials, which enhances the scattering of phonons and tunes the charge carrier properties, leading to the significant suppression of thermal conductivity. In conclusion, the simplicity of the synthetic method developed herein and the high performance of the final products provide an avenue to produce high-quality Ag₂Se-based thermoelectric materials.

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Research Organization:: Ames Laboratory (AMES), Ames, IA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357; AC02-07CH11358

OSTI ID:: 2341301

Report Number(s):: IS-J--11,309

Journal Information:: Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal Name: Journal of the American Chemical Society Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 146; ISSN 0002-7863

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
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Title: A Recipe for a Great Meal: A Benchtop Route from Elemental Se to Superior Thermoelectric β-Ag2Se

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Title: A Recipe for a Great Meal: A Benchtop Route from Elemental Se to Superior Thermoelectric β-Ag₂Se