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Research Article | Open Access

Substantial thermoelectric enhancement achieved by manipulating the band structure and dislocations in Ag and La co-doped SnTe

Wenjing XUa,†, Zhongwei ZHANGa,†, Chengyan LIUa( ), Jie GAOa, Zhenyuan YEa, Chunguang CHENa, Ying PENGa, Xiaobo BAIa, Lei MIAOa,b( )
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Material, Guangxi Collaborative Innovation Center of Structure and Property for New Energy and Materials, School of Material Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, SIT Research Laboratories, Innovative Global Program, Faculty of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo 135-8548, Japan

† Wenjing Xu and Zhongwei Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Abstract

Eco-friendly SnTe based thermoelectric materials are intensively studied recently as candidates to replace PbTe; yet the thermoelectric performance of SnTe is suppressed by its intrinsically high carrier concentration and high thermal conductivity. In this work, we confirm that the Ag and La co-doping can be applied to simultaneously enhance the power factor and reduce the thermal conductivity, contributing to a final promotion of figure of merit. On one hand, the carrier concentration and band offset between valence bands are concurrently reduced, promoting the power factor to a highest value of ~2436 μW·m-1·K-2 at 873 K. On the other hand, lots of dislocations (~3.16×107 mm-2) associated with impurity precipitates are generated, resulting in the decline of thermal conductivity to a minimum value of 1.87 W·m-1·K-1 at 873 K. As a result, a substantial thermoelectric performance enhancement up to zT ≈ 1.0 at 873 K is obtained for the sample Sn0.94Ag0.09La0.05Te, which is twice that of the pristine SnTe (zT ≈ 0.49 at 873 K). This strategy of synergistic manipulation of electronic band and microstructures via introducing rare earth elements could be applied to other systems to improve thermoelectric performance.

Keywords

SnTeband convergencedislocationAg and La co-dopingthermoelectric performance

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Journal of Advanced Ceramics
Volume 10 Issue 4,
August 2021
Pages 860-870
DOI: 10.1007/s40145-021-0480-3
Cite this article:
XU W, ZHANG Z, LIU C, et al. Substantial thermoelectric enhancement achieved by manipulating the band structure and dislocations in Ag and La co-doped SnTe. Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2021, 10(4): 860-870. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-021-0480-3

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Received: 24 February 2021
Revised: 17 March 2021
Accepted: 31 March 2021
Published: 05 August 2021
© The Author(s) 2021

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