High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Aug 13;110(33):13261-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1305735110. Epub 2013 Jul 30.

Abstract

From an environmental perspective, lead-free SnTe would be preferable for solid-state waste heat recovery if its thermoelectric figure-of-merit could be brought close to that of the lead-containing chalcogenides. In this work, we studied the thermoelectric properties of nanostructured SnTe with different dopants, and found indium-doped SnTe showed extraordinarily large Seebeck coefficients that cannot be explained properly by the conventional two-valence band model. We attributed this enhancement of Seebeck coefficients to resonant levels created by the indium impurities inside the valence band, supported by the first-principles simulations. This, together with the lower thermal conductivity resulting from the decreased grain size by ball milling and hot pressing, improved both the peak and average nondimensional figure-of-merit (ZT) significantly. A peak ZT of ∼1.1 was obtained in 0.25 atom % In-doped SnTe at about 873 K.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Electric Conductivity
  • Iridium / chemistry*
  • Materials Testing
  • Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
  • Models, Chemical*
  • Nanostructures / chemistry*
  • Tellurium / chemistry*
  • Temperature*
  • Tin Compounds / chemistry*
  • X-Ray Diffraction

Substances

  • Tin Compounds
  • Iridium
  • Tellurium