Extremely low thermal conductivity and enhanced thermoelectric performance of polycrystalline SnSe by Cu doping. (1st April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gong, Yaru; Chang, Cheng; Wei, Wei; Liu, Jiang; Xiong, Wenjie; Chai, Shuang; Li, Di; Zhang, Jian; Tang, Guodong
• Is Part Of: Scripta materialia. Number 147(2018)
• Page Start: 74
• Page End: 78
• Publication Date: 2018-04-01
• Subjects: Thermoelectric materials -- Thermoelectric performance -- Thermal conductivity; Materials -- Periodicals; Metallurgy -- Periodicals; Metalen; Legeringen; Materiaalkunde; Metals, metalworking and machinery industries; Metals; Electronic journals; 620.11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scriptamat.2017.12.035
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1359-6462

Abstract

Abstract: Here, we systematically investigated the effect of Cu doping on the thermoelectric properties of SnSe prepared by hydrothermal synthesis. Low Cu doped content (x = 0.01) lead to enhanced electrical conductivity and power factor compared with reported polycrystalline SnSe. Nanoscale precipitates and mesoscale grains define all-scale hierarchical architectures to scattering phonons. Furthermore, Cu atomic point-defect scattering play an important role in reducing the lattice thermal conductivity. These two favorable factors lead to low lattice thermal conductivity as low as 0.2 Wm − 1 K − 1 at 873 K. This ultralow thermal conductivity results in a ZT of ~ 1.2 at 873 K in Cu0.01 Sn0.99 Se. Graphical abstract: Nanostructures and Cu atoms are introduced to obtain ultralow thermal conductivity for optimizing thermoelectric properties of polycrystalline SnSe.Image 2