Fine electron and phonon transports manipulation by Mn compensation for high thermoelectric performance of Sb2Te3(SnTe)n materials

Xia，Junchao1; Huang，Yi2; Xu，Xiao2; Yu，Yong2; Wang，Yan2; Sun，Kaitong1; Mao，Dasha2; Jiao，Yitao1; Li，Hai Feng1; He，Jiaqing2

2023-04-01

10.1016/j.mtphys.2023.101055

Materials Today Physics   Impact Factor & Quartile

2542-5293

Fabricating the SbTe(SnTe) compound has been proved as an effective way to suppress the lattice thermal conductivity and optimize the band structure simultaneously for enhancing the thermoelectric (TE) performance of SnTe. In view of the ultra-low carrier mobility resulted from the strong vacancy-electron scattering in SnTe–SbTe alloy, an appropriate weakening of vacancy scattering to pursue ideal compromise among carrier mobility (μ), concentration (n), and density-of-state effective mass (m*) is of great significance for more effective performance promotion. Herein, we propose an approach of cation-site compensation to finely manipulate the transport properties in SbTe(SnTe) alloy. We, for the first time in the SnTe community, contrastively investigated diverse cation-site fillers, including homogeneous atoms (Sn, Pb) and heterogeneous atoms (Cd, Mn) for maintaining high μ with a large m*, which indicated that Mn compensation exhibits the most appealing effect on synergistically modulating the three electrical transport parameters, μ, n and m*. Our study archives a satisfied electrical transport property in the optimized SbTe(SnMnTe) specimen. The atomic structural analysis discovered the coherent Mn-rich nanostructures which will enrich the phonon scattering mechanism while having minimal effect on electron transport. Benefiting from the finely manipulated electron and phonon transports, a peak ZT of ∼1.3 at 773 K and an average ZT of ∼0.78 (300–823 K) are achieved in the SbTe(SnMnTe) alloy. This work provides a feasible strategy to realize the sharply enhanced TE performance in medium-temperature TE system with abundant vacancies.

Cation-site compensation SnTe Thermoelectric Transport coefficients Vacancy engineering

English

Corresponding

Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia[0049/2021/AGJ];Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia[0051/2019/AFJ];Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia[0090/2021/A2];National Natural Science Foundation of China[11874194];National Natural Science Foundation of China[11934007];Research Services and Knowledge Transfer Office, University of Macau[EF030/IAPME-LHF/2021/GDSTIC];Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Program[JCYJ20200109141205978];Research Services and Knowledge Transfer Office, University of Macau[MYRG2020-00278-IAPME];

2-s2.0-85151443139

Scopus

1.Joint Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education,Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering,University of Macau,Avenida da Universidade,Taipa,Macao SAR,999078,China
2.Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Thermoelectric Materials,Department of Physics,Southern University of Science and Technology,Shenzhen,518055,China

Xia，Junchao,Huang，Yi,Xu，Xiao,et al. Fine electron and phonon transports manipulation by Mn compensation for high thermoelectric performance of Sb2Te3(SnTe)n materials[J]. Materials Today Physics,2023,33.

Xia，Junchao.,Huang，Yi.,Xu，Xiao.,Yu，Yong.,Wang，Yan.,...&He，Jiaqing.(2023).Fine electron and phonon transports manipulation by Mn compensation for high thermoelectric performance of Sb2Te3(SnTe)n materials.Materials Today Physics,33.

Xia，Junchao,et al."Fine electron and phonon transports manipulation by Mn compensation for high thermoelectric performance of Sb2Te3(SnTe)n materials".Materials Today Physics 33(2023).