Simultaneous Optimization of Carrier Concentration and Alloy Scattering for Ultrahigh Performance GeTe Thermoelectrics.

ABSTRACT: In order to locate the optimal carrier concentrations for peaking the thermoelectric performance in p-type group IV monotellurides, existing efforts focus on aliovalent doping, either to increase (in PbTe) or to decrease (in SnTe and GeTe) the hole concentration. The limited solubility of aliovalent dopants usually introduces insufficient phonon scattering for thermoelectric performance maximization. With a decrease in the size of cation, the concentration of holes, induced by cation vacancies in intrinsic compounds, increases rapidly from ≈10¹⁸ cm^-3 in PbTe to ≈10²⁰ cm^-3 in SnTe and then to ≈10²¹ cm^-3 in GeTe. This motivates a strategy here for reducing the carrier concentration in GeTe, by increasing the mean size of catio

SUBMITTER: Li J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5737105 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature