High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

From an environmental perspective, lead-free SnTe would be preferable for solid-state waste heat recovery if its thermoelectric figure-of-merit could be brought close to that of the lead-containing chalcogenides. In this work, we studied the thermoelectric properties of nanostructured SnTe with different dopants, and found indium-doped SnTe showed extraordinarily large Seebeck coefficients that cannot be explained properly by the conventional two-valence band model. We attributed this enhancement of Seebeck coefficients to resonant levels created by the indium impurities inside the valence band, supported by the first-principles simulations. This, together with the lower thermal conductivity resulting from the…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: DE-SC0001299
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Award: DE-SC0001299
• OO
  Office of Science

  Award: DE-SC0001299
• SS
  Solid-State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Award: DE-SC0001299