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Research Article | Open Access

Structure and thermoelectric properties of half-Heusler-like TiFeCuxSb alloys

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai, 200444, China
Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, 230601, China
Minjiang Collaborative Center for Theoretical Physics, College of Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Minjiang University, 200 Xiyuangong Road, Fuzhou, 350108, China
Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 4800 Caoan Road, Shanghai, 201804, China

Peer review under responsibility of The Chinese Ceramic Society.

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Graphical Abstract

Abstract

Previous research on the ternary Ti-Fe-Sb system has revealed that stoichiometric TiFeSb cannot exist as a stable compound, whereas a single-phase TiFe1.33Sb alloy with the half-Heusler-like structure has been synthesized by adding excessive Fe. In this work, we report that TiFeSb can also be stabilized by filling additional Cu to the vacant 4d site of the half-Heusler lattice. Our experiments indicate that the TiFeCuxSb (x = 0–0.25) samples exhibit a p-type conduction with extremely high carrier concentration ((0.5 –2.5) × 1022 cm−3)), while these samples attain very large Seebeck coefficients, over 100 μV/K in the whole measured temperature range for the samples with x = 0.15–0.25. In addition, a logarithmic divergence of the temperature-dependent specific heat capacity (CP/T) is observed at low temperatures, implying the strange-metal behavior of TiFeCuxSb samples. The partial filling of the vacant 4d site results in significantly reduced lattice thermal conductivity, leading to the low total thermal conductivity of 2.8 W·m−1·K−1 at 823 K for the TiFeCu0.20Sb sample. Consequently, a dimensionless figure of merit zT of 0.54 at 923 K is realized for TiFeCu0.20Sb, demonstrating that promising thermoelectric materials with intriguing physical properties can be discovered in the composition gap of half- and full-Heusler alloys.

Keywords

TiFeSbThermoelectric materialsHeusler alloysVacancy-filled

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Journal of Materiomics
Volume 10 Issue 3,
May 2024
Pages 523-530
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmat.2023.07.013
Cite this article:
Yin S, Li Q, Wang S, et al. Structure and thermoelectric properties of half-Heusler-like TiFeCuxSb alloys. Journal of Materiomics, 2024, 10(3): 523-530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmat.2023.07.013

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Received: 02 June 2023
Revised: 15 July 2023
Accepted: 27 July 2023
Published: 11 August 2023
© 2023 The Authors.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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