Boosting thermoelectrics by alloying Cu_(2)Se in SnTe-CdTe compounds

摘要

The discovery of band convergence has opened an effective avenue for significantly enhancing thermoelectric performance of SnTe,while alloying CdTe in SnTe is evidenced efficient for improving the valley degeneracy.However,the thermoelectric transport properties are limited due to the low solubility of CdTe in SnTe(~3%).Inspired by the improvement of dimensionless figure of merit zT in Cu or Se-doped SnTe,investigating the effect of Cu_(2)Se on the electronic and phonon transport properties of SnTe-CdTe alloys is highly desired.Traditionally,improving the quality factor can trigger an increase of the potential of a compound for higher zT,which is of importance for design of thermoelectric materials.Here,alloyed 3%Cu_(2)Se in SnTe-3%CdTe system enables an increased peak zT,which is attributed by the optimization of electronic performance(~21μW cm^(-1)K^(-2)at 800 K),as well as the decreased lattice thermal conductivity owing to the enhanced mass and strain fluctuations.More importantly,alloying Cu_(2)Se not only improves the quality factor from~0.25 to~0.45,resulting in a higher maximum potential zT,but also effectively preserves the Fermi energy in a relative optimized level.The current findings demonstrate the role of Cu_(2)Se for manipulating thermoelectrics in SnTe.