Thermoelectric performance of SnTe with ZnO carrier compensation, energy filtering, and multiscale phonon scattering

In this work, the thermoelectric properties of SnTe have been regulated synergistically by introduction of n‐type ZnO nanoinclusions. On one hand, the excessive holes in SnTe matrix were compensated properly by n‐type ZnO, and the Seebeck coefficient has been improved greatly due to the carrier ener...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of the American Ceramic Society Vol. 100; no. 12; pp. 5723 - 5730
Main Authors Zhou, Zhiwei, Yang, Junyou, Jiang, Qinghui, Zhang, Dan, Xin, Jiwu, Li, Xin, Ren, Yangyang, He, Xu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Columbus Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2017
Subjects
Filtration
nanocomposites
Scattering
Thermal conductivity
thermoelectric properties
tin/tin compounds
Zinc oxide
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Summary:In this work, the thermoelectric properties of SnTe have been regulated synergistically by introduction of n‐type ZnO nanoinclusions. On one hand, the excessive holes in SnTe matrix were compensated properly by n‐type ZnO, and the Seebeck coefficient has been improved greatly due to the carrier energy filtering effect by a large quantity of ZnO‐SnTe hetero‐junction interface barriers; On the other hand, the thermal conductivity gets reduced by the enhanced phonon scattering from multiscale hierarchical architectures. Consequently, a maximum ZT of ~0.9 at 873K has been obtained in the 0.8 wt% sample, which enhances by 112% in comparison with the nanoinclusion‐free sample.
ISSN:0002-7820
1551-2916
DOI:10.1111/jace.15088