Affiliation:
1. School of Materials Science and Engineering Shanxi Institute of Science and Technology Jincheng 048011 China
2. School of Material & Chemical Engineering Ningbo University of Technology Ningbo 315016 China
3. Henan Key Laboratory of Coal Green Conversion College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Henan Polytechnic University Jiaozuo 454003 China
4. Shanxi Yamei Daning Energy Co., Ltd. Yangcheng 048114 China
Abstract
As an earth‐abundant, environment‐friendly, and cost‐effective material, tetrahedrite Cu12Sb4S13 has attracted much attention in thermoelectrics (TEs). However, the TE performance of the pristine Cu12Sb4S13 (CSS) is mediocre, thereby much improvement is required. In this work, both the electronic and phonon transports of the CSS are engineered using Ga2Te3 as a dopant. In the results, it is indicated that dual substitutions of Ga for Cu and Te for Sb not only cause the enhancement of power factor via electronic band structure tuning, but also leads to a drop in both the electronic and lattice thermal conductivities. As a result, the total thermal conductivity (κ) decreases to 0.98 W m−1 K−1 at 770 K, which is about 58% that of the pristine CSS, thus improving the TE performance with the highest dimensionless figure of merit value increasing to 0.95 for (Cu12Sb4S13)0.9(Ga2Te3)0.1 at 773 K, 1.9 times that of the pristine CSS (≈0.5 at 770 K).
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China