@article{9e31b5c586754b8998e0d18648749d64,
title = "High Thermoelectric Performance in Supersaturated Solid Solutions and Nanostructured n-Type PbTe–GeTe",
abstract = "Sb-doped and GeTe-alloyed n-type thermoelectric materials that show an excellent figure of merit ZT in the intermediate temperature range (400–800 K) are reported. The synergistic effect of favorable changes to the band structure resulting in high Seebeck coefficient and enhanced phonon scattering by point defects and nanoscale precipitates resulting in reduction of thermal conductivity are demonstrated. The samples can be tuned as single-phase solid solution (SS) or two-phase system with nanoscale precipitates (Nano) based on the annealing processes. The GeTe alloying results in band structure modification by widening the bandgap and increasing the density-of-states effective mass of PbTe, resulting in significantly enhanced Seebeck coefficients. The nanoscale precipitates can improve the power factor in the low temperature range and further reduce the lattice thermal conductivity (κlat). Specifically, the Seebeck coefficient of Pb0.988Sb0.012Te–13%GeTe–Nano approaches −280 µV K−1 at 673 K with a low κlat of 0.56 W m−1 K−1 at 573 K. Consequently, a peak ZT value of 1.38 is achieved at 623 K. Moreover, a high average ZTavg value of ≈1.04 is obtained in the temperature range from 300 to 773 K for n-type Pb0.988Sb0.012Te–13%GeTe–Nano.",
keywords = "GeTe alloying, n-type PbTe, thermal conductivity, thermoelectric materials",
author = "Luo, {Zhong Zhen} and Xiaomi Zhang and Xia Hua and Gangjian Tan and Bailey, {Trevor P.} and Jianwei Xu and Ctirad Uher and Chris Wolverton and Dravid, {Vinayak P.} and Qingyu Yan and Kanatzidis, {Mercouri G.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy, Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences under grant DE-SC0014520, DOE Office of Science (sample preparation, synthesis, XRD, TEM measurements, and DFT calculations). The authors gratefully acknowledge National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61728401), Singapore MOE AcRF Tier 1 under Grant Nos. RG 113/15 and 2016-T1-002-065, Singapore A*STAR Pharos Program SERC1527200022. The authors also acknowledge the support from FACTs of Nanyang Technological University for sample analysis. This work made use of the EPIC facilities of Northwestern's NUANCE Center, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205); the MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1121262) at the Materials Research Center; the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN); the Keck Foundation; and the State of Illinois, through the IIN. User Facilities were supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 and DE-AC02-05CH11231. Access to facilities of high performance computational resources at the Northwestern University was acknowledged. Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy, Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences under grant DE-SC0014520, DOE Office of Science (sample preparation, synthesis, XRD, TEM measurements, and DFT calculations). The authors gratefully acknowledge National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61728401), Singapore MOE AcRF Tier 1 under Grant Nos. RG 113/15 and 2016-T1-002-065, Singapore A*STAR Pharos Program SERC1527200022. The authors also acknowledge the support from FACTs of Nanyang Technological University for sample analysis. This work made use of the EPIC facilities of Northwestern{\textquoteright}s NUANCE Center, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205); the MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1121262) at the Materials Research Center; the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN); the Keck Foundation; and the State of Illinois, through the IIN. User Facilities were supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 and DE-AC02-05CH11231. Access to facilities of high performance computational resources at the Northwestern University was acknowledged. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim",
year = "2018",
month = aug,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1002/adfm.201801617",
language = "English",
volume = "28",
journal = "Advanced Functional Materials",
issn = "1616-301X",
publisher = "Wiley-VCH Verlag",
number = "31",
}