Integrating Band Structure Engineering with All-Scale Hierarchical Structuring for High Thermoelectric Performance in PbTe System

Yanling Pei, Gangjian Tan, Dan Feng, Lei Zheng, Qing Tan, Xiaobing Xie, Shengkai Gong, Yue Chen, Jing Feng Li, Jiaqing He, Mercouri G. Kanatzidis*, Li Dong Zhao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

167 Scopus citations

Abstract

PbTe1− xSex-2%Na-y%SrTe system is investigated and a high maximum ZT of 2.3 at 923 K for PbTe0.85Se0.15-2%Na-4%SrTe is reported. This is achieved by performing electronic band structures modifications as well as all-scale hierarchical structuring and combining the two effects. It is found that high ZTs in PbTe0.85Se0.15-2%Na-4%SrTe are possible at all temperature from 300 to 873 K with an average ZTave of 1.23. The high performance in PbTe1− xSex-2%Na-y%SrTe can be achieved by either choosing PbTe-2Na-4SrTe or PbTe0.85Se0.15-2Na as a matrix. At room temperature the carrier mobility shows negligible variations as SrTe fraction is increased, however the lattice thermal conductivity is significantly reduced from ≈1.1 to ≈0.82 W m−1 K−1 when 5.0% SrTe is added, correspondingly, the lattice thermal conductivity at 923 K decreases from ≈0.59 to ≈0.43 W m−1 K−1. The power factor maxima of PbTe1− xSex-2Na-4SrTe shift systematically to higher temperature with rising Se fractions due to bands divergence. The maximum power factors reach ≈27, ≈30, ≈31 μW cm−1 K−2 for the x = 0, 0.05, and 0.15 samples peak at 473, 573, and 623 K, respectively. The results indicate that ZT can be increased by synergistic integration of band structure engineering and all-scale hierarchical architectures.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1601450
JournalAdvanced Energy Materials
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 8 2017

Funding

Y.P. and G.T. contributed equally to this work. This work was supported by the “Zhuoyue” program of Beihang University, the Recruitment Program for Young Professionals, and NSFC under Grant No. 51571007, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Y.P. and L.-D.Z.). This work was supported in part by a grant by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001054 (G.T. and M.G.K.). This work was also partly supported by the Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality under Grant No. ZDSYS20141118160434515 and Guangdong Science and Technology Fund under Grant No. 2015A030308001 (J.H.).

Keywords

  • PbTe
  • all-scale hierarchical structuring
  • band structure engineering
  • thermoelectric

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • General Materials Science

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