Medium-temperature thermoelectric GeTe: vacancy suppression and band structure engineering leading to high performance

• Published in: Energy & environmental science Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 1396 - 1403
• Main Authors: Dong, Jinfeng, Sun, Fu-Hua, Tang, Huaichao, Pei, Jun, Zhuang, Hua-Lu, Hu, Hai-Hua, Zhang, Bo-Ping, Pan, Yu, Li, Jing-Feng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Carrier density; Convergence; Doping; Electrical resistivity; Heat conductivity; Heat transfer; Lattice vacancies; Mobility; Optimization; Temperature effects; Thermal conductivity; Thermoelectric materials; Transport properties; Variation

GeTe is a promising thermoelectric material at medium temperature, but its carrier concentration tends to go beyond the optimal range for thermoelectrics. This work realized a significant ZT enhancement from 1.0 to 2.0 by suppressing the formation of Ge vacancies and band convergence. By simply opti...