Spark plasma sintering technique: an alternative method to enhance ZT values of Sb doped Cu2SnSe3

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics Vol. 29; no. 15; pp. 13200 - 13208
• Main Authors: Prasad, K. Shyam, Rao, Ashok, Bhardwaj, Ruchi, Johri, Kishor Kumar, Chang, Chia-Chi, Kuo, Yung-Kang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Antimony; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Conduction heating; Conductive heat transfer; Current carriers; Electrical resistivity; Heat transfer; Materials Science; Optical and Electronic Materials; Phonons; Plasma sintering; Seebeck effect; Spark plasma sintering; Thermal conductivity
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-018-9444-y

Sb doped Cu 2 Sn 1− x Sb x Se 3 (0 ≤  x  ≤ 0.04) compounds have been fabricated by spark plasma sintering technique for the investigation of their thermoelelctric properties in the temperature range 10–400 K. The conduction mechanism of electrical resistivity reveals that small polaron hopping model is valid in the high-temperature regime and variable range hopping model in low-temperature regime. The positive values of Seebeck coefficient ( S ) for Cu 2 Sn 1− x Sb x Se 3 (0 ≤  x  ≤ 0.04) samples in the entire temperature range indicates that the majority charge carriers are holes. The electronic thermal conductivity ( κ e ) was estimated by Wiedmann-Franz law and found that the contribution of κ e to the total κ is < 1%, suggesting that the heat conduction for presently studied Cu 2 Sn 1− x Sb x Se 3 (0 ≤  x  ≤ 0.04) samples is mainly associated to the lattice phonons. The highest ZT value for the Cu 2 Sn 0.96 Sb 0.04 Se 3 sample was 0.044 at 400 K, which is approximately four times that of the Cu 2 SnSe 3 sample and an order of magnitude larger than the samples prepared by the conventional solid-state method. Also, the thermoelectric compatibility factor of Cu 2 Sn 0.96 Sb 0.04 Se 3 was found to be about 1 per V.