Plastic Mg3(Sb,Bi)2-based thermoelectric compounds with enhanced texture via cold-deformation†
a
and
Shengqiang
Bai
*ab
Abstract
Mg3(Sb,Bi)2-based Zintl compounds have attracted lots of attention due to their high thermoelectric performance and good mechanical properties. However, thermally activated mobility, which is ascribed to the grain boundary scattering, greatly limits their practical use. In this work, we reveal the plasticity of Mg3(Sb,Bi)2-based compounds in the compressive strength test. The ab initio analysis indicates that this plasticity should be ascribed to the low slip barrier energy (∼580 mJ m−2), which is only one third of the cleavage energy (∼1600 mJ m−2). Based on this finding, we propose a cold-deformation procedure to elongate particles and to enhance texture, which successfully suppresses the grain boundary scattering. As a result, a high carrier mobility of 86.6 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a high power factor of 16.2 μW cm−1 K−2 in Mg3.1Bi1.5Sb0.49Te0.01 are obtained at room temperature. The plastic deformation capacity of Mg3(Sb,Bi)2 compounds provides a near-net-forming method to fabricate special-shaped devices at room-temperature, which will extend the application fields of thermoelectric techniques.
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