High Performance GeTe Thermoelectrics in both Rhombohedral and

3 hours ago - GeTe experiences phase transition between cubic and rhombohedral through the distortion along [111] direction. Cubic GeTe shares the ...
0 downloads 0 Views 766KB Size
Subscriber access provided by Kaohsiung Medical University

Article

High Performance GeTe Thermoelectrics in both Rhombohedral and Cubic Phases Juan Li, Xinyue Zhang, Xiao Wang, Zhonglin Bu, Liangtao Zheng, Binqiang Zhou, Fen Xiong, Yue Chen, and Yanzhong Pei J. Am. Chem. Soc., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b09147 • Publication Date (Web): 25 Oct 2018 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on October 26, 2018

Just Accepted “Just Accepted” manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication. They are posted online prior to technical editing, formatting for publication and author proofing. The American Chemical Society provides “Just Accepted” as a service to the research community to expedite the dissemination of scientific material as soon as possible after acceptance. “Just Accepted” manuscripts appear in full in PDF format accompanied by an HTML abstract. “Just Accepted” manuscripts have been fully peer reviewed, but should not be considered the official version of record. They are citable by the Digital Object Identifier (DOI®). “Just Accepted” is an optional service offered to authors. Therefore, the “Just Accepted” Web site may not include all articles that will be published in the journal. After a manuscript is technically edited and formatted, it will be removed from the “Just Accepted” Web site and published as an ASAP article. Note that technical editing may introduce minor changes to the manuscript text and/or graphics which could affect content, and all legal disclaimers and ethical guidelines that apply to the journal pertain. ACS cannot be held responsible for errors or consequences arising from the use of information contained in these “Just Accepted” manuscripts.

is published by the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036 Published by American Chemical Society. Copyright © American Chemical Society. However, no copyright claim is made to original U.S. Government works, or works produced by employees of any Commonwealth realm Crown government in the course of their duties.

Page 1 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Journal of the American Chemical Society

High Performance GeTe Thermoelectrics in both Rhombohedral and Cubic Phases Juan Li, Xinyue Zhang, Xiao Wang, Zhonglin Bu, Liangtao Zheng, Binqiang Zhou, Fen Xiong, Yue Chen and Yanzhong Pei1, * 1Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji Univ., Shanghai 201804, China. 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China. *Email: [email protected] (YP)

Abstract: GeTe experiences phase transition between cubic and rhombohedral through the distortion along [111] direction. Cubic GeTe shares the similarity of a two-valence-band structure (high-energy L and low-energy  bands) with other cubic IV-VI semiconductors such as PbTe, SnTe and PbSe, and all show a high thermoelectric performance due to a high band degeneracy. Very recently, the two valence bands were found to switch in energy in rhombohedral GeTe and to be split due to the symmetry-breaking of the crystal structure. This enables the overall band degeneracy to be manipulated either by the control of symmetry-induced degeneracy or by the design of energy-aligned orbital degeneracy. Here, we show Sb-doping for optimizing carrier concentration and manipulating the degree of rhombohedral lattice distortion to maximize the band degeneracy and then electronic performance. In addition, Sb-doping significantly promotes the solubility of PbTe, enhancing the scattering of phonons by Ge/Pb substitutional defects for minimizing the lattice thermal conductivity. This successfully realizes a superior thermoelectric figure of merit, zT of >2 in both rhombohedral and cubic GeTe, demonstrating these alloys as top candidates for thermoelectric applications at T2 in both low-temperature rhombohedral and high-temperature cubic phases, which clearly demonstrates GeTe as a top candidate for efficient thermoelectric power generation applications below 800 K. Results and discussion

Page 2 of 7

600 0

b

2%

695

4%

PbTe

Sb-doping 10

20

30

40

at.% Pb

GeTe

50

PbTe

c without Sb PbTe

20m

Ge0.9Pb0.1Te

20m

Ge0.85Pb0.15Te

e

d

with 4% Sb

20m

Ge0.81Pb0.15Sb0.04Te

20m

Ge0.56Pb0.4Sb0.04Te

Figure 1. Pseudo binary phase diagram of GeTe-PbTe69 with an rough illustration of the increase in PbTe solubility due to Sb-doping (a). Back scattering SEM images for GeTe-PbTe system without (b and c) and with (d and e) Sb-doping, indicating the solubility of PbTe (white spots in c) increases from ~10% to >40% due to 4% Sb-doping and the existence of Ge-precipitates (black domains in b, d and e) in all samples.

Details on synthesis, characterization and measurements of the materials can be found in the supplementary. The room temperature powder X-ray diffraction patterns for all samples are all shown in Figure S1, all the diffraction peaks can be indexed to the rhombohedral structure of GeTe with trace amount of Ge but no PbTe impurity phase is observed. Rietveld refinements are carried out based on the powder X-ray diffraction data to estimate the lattice parameters and inter-axial angles (Fig. 2). Taking Ge0.78Pb0.2Sb0.02Te and Ge0.78Pb0.2Sb0.02Te (Figure S2) for example, more details on the refinement and structural parameters for these samples are given in Table S1and Table S2. In order to further characterize the phase composition, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyses are carried out (Figure. 1 and S3). When the nominal PbTe concentration is 15% in GeTe, exceeding the solubility (~10%, Figure 1a), PbTe secondary phase is observed as shown in Figure 1c and S3a. However, when doped with 2% Sb the solubility of ACS Paragon Plus Environment

a

xPb (%)

88.8

=0 x Pb

88.6

=0 x Pb

88.5

1

2

ySb (%)

3

4

Ge1+Te Ge1-xBixTe

150

.2

d

Ge0.85-yPb0.15SbyTe, this work Ge0.8-yPb0.2SbyTe, this work

100

Two-band model, this work

5

100 80

Ge1-xPbxTe,this work Ge0.96-xPbxSb0.04Te, this work

.15

10

15

xPb+ySb (%)

20

25

60 40

20

1020

=0 x Pb 0

1

2

.1

3

ySb (%)

300 K

300 K

88.4

88.1

xPb (%)

300 K 0

50

88.2 0

c S (V/K)

 (deg.)  (deg.)

a (Å) a (Å)

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

0

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Te Sb y

5

88.3

xPb=0.1

6.04

5

Te Sb y

xPb=0.15

1

0

.2

d

2

Ge0.9-yPb0.1SbyTe, this work

0

88.7

6.06

6.02

88.0

xPb=0.2

6.08

88.6

88.2

xPb (%)

6.10

This work This work This work Parker's Hohnke's Bierly's

88.4

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

6.12

0

Pb 0

5

88.8

y

0

1

3

Te Sb y

c

5.95

89.0

.15

6.00

89.2

2

4

.1

6.05

3

5

Pb 0

This work This work This work Parker's Hohnke's Bierly's

4

6

Pb 0

6.10

300 K

y 5-

6.15

ySb= 0 ySb= 4%

5

Ge1-xPbxTe

7

-y

ySb= 0 ySb= 4%

89.4

6

Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe

8

.9 Ge 0

b

6.20

89.6

b

ySb= 0ySb= 4%

7

Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe, 300 K

a

8

.8Ge 0

It is found that the energy of mixing decreases from 45.6 meV to 41.1 meV due to Sb-doping in this composition. This means that Sb-doping tends to decrease the formation energy of the alloy, resulting in an increase in the solubility of PbTe in GeTe. It should be noted that all the materials come with trace amount of Ge having similar concentration and distribution (Figure 1 and S3), which is a common case for GeTe 65, 70. This work focuses on materials with 10%, 15% and 20% PbTe alloying with optimized hole concentrations, which all show a peak zT greater than 2 but the origins are different.

nH 1020 cm-3

.

(Figure 3a and 3b). A similar saturation in nH is observed in GeTe alloys without Sb-doping when the PbTe concentration exceeds 10%, which further confirms a limited PbTe solubility of ~10% with the absence of Sb-doping and agrees well with the XRD and SEM results. The decreased hole concentration with the increase of Sb-doping indicates the successful substitution of Ge by Sb for releasing electrons, which is consistent with literature results42, 46, 72. Importantly, alloying and doping nicely enable a board range of carrier concentration (nH) to be achieved, which ensures an optimal nH to be located for maximizing the electronic performance. In addition, such a board carrier concentration enables a detailed comparison on the transport properties to literatures46, 65, 67-68. Figure 3c and 3d show the room temperature Hall carrier concentration dependent Seebeck coefficient (c) and hall mobility (d) for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe (x=0.1, 0.15, 0.2), which indicate a negligible modification on band structure due to alloying/doping since the scattering of charge carriers is dominated by acoustic phonons for all samples including pristine GeTe26-27, 41 (Figure S4).

H (cm2/V-s)

PbTe quickly increases to be >20% (Fig. S3b), and 4% Sb-doping leads to a Pb-doping of >40% (Figure 1e and S3c). This indicates that a Sb-doping of 40% (Figure 1a), enabling a systematical investigation on thermoelectric properties of GeTe-based alloys in a broad composition range. To investigate the effect of Sb-doping on the miscibility of GeTe and PbTe, DFT calculations on the energy of mixing for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloy with y=41% and x= 3.7% are carried out, according to the following equation:

.8 Ge 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Journal of the American Chemical Society

nH 1020 cm-3

Page 3 of 7

4

Figure 2. PbTe-alloying (a and b) and Sb-doping (c and d) dependent lattice parameters (a and c) and rhombohedral angle (b and d) for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys at room temperature, with a comparison to literature results62-63, 71, the solid lines are guide to the eye.

-3

1021

nH (cm )

1020

-3

nH (cm )

1021

Figure 3. Composition dependent Hall carrier concentration (a and b), as well as Hall carrier concentration dependent Seebeck coefficient (c) and Hall mobility (d) for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys at room temperature, with a comparison to literature results for GeTe alloys41.

a

b

c

The composition dependent lattice parameters and the rhombohedral angle for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys with and without Sb-doping are shown in Figure 2a and Figure 2b, respectively. The lattice parameters and interaxial angle show a saturation when x=0.1 for Sb-free samples but continue increasing linearly when Figure 4. Effective band structures of Ge1-xPbxTe alloys, where a 4% Sb-doping is applied. Once fixing the PbTe concentration at 3×3×3 supercell of rhombohedral GeTe is constructed with 5 or 11 of 27 10%, 15% and 20%, varying Sb-doping concentration leads to an Ge atoms be substituted by Pb to simulate PbTe-alloying concentrations increase in both lattice parameters and rhombohedral angle of 19% or 41%, respectively. (Figure 2c and 2d). The main difference between PbTe-alloying To further verify the influence of PbTe-alloying in GeTe, and Sb-doping, relies on the factors that the former dominates the DFT calculation on band structure (Figure 4) is carried out lattice expansion while the later largely pushes the interaxial angle considering alloying concentrations of 19% and 41%, respectively. to approach to 90 degrees (a cubic lattice) when x≤20%. It is seen that Pb-alloying has an insignificant effect on the Being consistent with the linear change in lattice parameters, valence band structure of α-GeTe. It should be noted that a small the room temperature hall carrier concentration (nH) decreases band gap observed at a high Pb concentration (~41%) is believed with increasing PbTe-alloying and Sb-doping concentrations ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Journal of the American Chemical Society 2.0 Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe

2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5

min 0

5

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

xPb (%)

) 5E 20

0.8

3000

ySb= 0

)

x=0.2 (2.0E20)

1.

1.2

20 0E

1(

vL

(2 .

0.

ySb= 4%

x=

5 0 .1

x=

ySb= 0

3500

zT

2.5

1.6

ySb= 4%

0.4

v

2000

1500

vT 0

5

10

15

20

xPb (%)

25

30

35

40

b

0.0 300

400 C

Figure 5. Composition dependent lattice thermal conductivity (a) and sound velocity (b) for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys at room temperature, with and without 4% Sb doping.

The detailed temperature dependent Seebeck coefficient, resistivity, thermal conductivity and its lattice thermal component, as well as the thermoelectric figure of merit for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys with x=0.10, 0.15, 0.2 are respectively shown in Figure S5, S6 and S7. It is seen that majority of the samples studied here shows a degenerated semiconducting behavior, particularly at T600 K, a few samples with a low carrier concentration (nH25% PbTe alloying at room temperature. Such a low L is approaching the amorphous limit of GeTe according to the Cahill model73-74. In addition, L for samples with and without Sb doping, can be well understood by the Debye-Callaway model75 (solid curves in Figure 5a, details are given in the supplementary), taking into account the changes in sound velocities due to PbTe-alloying. The decrease in sound velocity (Figure 5b) due to alloying suggests a bond softening 57-58, which also contributes to the L-reduction observed (Figure 5a), and the solids lines in Figure 5b are guide to the eye. The optimization in carrier concentration and the reduction in lattice thermal conductivity due to Sb-doping and PbTe-alloying, definitely contribute to an enhancement in thermoelectric figure of merit (zT) in these GeTe-based materials as shown in Figure 6a. Indeed, a high zT of>2 can be guaranteed in both rhombohedral and cubic GeTe with 10~20% PbTe-alloying once the carrier concentration is optimized (Figure S5-S7). A further increase in PbTe-alloying leads to no further improvements in zT in this work.

Energy

b

Sound velocity m/s

a 3.0

0.0

a

Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe, 300 K

L w/m-k

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

to be related to the unfolding technique, in which only atomic positions are allowed to be relaxed (DFT computational details can be found in Supplementary).

Page 4 of 7

500

600

T (K) C

700

800

C

Symmetry degree

L4  6   12

 6 Z L 3 Rhom.

Near Cubic

Cubic

Figure 6. Temperature dependent thermoelectric figure of merit for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys (a), demonstrating their excellent thermoelectric performance in both rhombohedral and cubic phases. Schematic of band structure evaluation for GeTe versus its rhombohedral angle, as well as the illustration of symmetry breaking leading to a better convergence of split bands, a reduced lattice thermal conductivity and an enhanced thermoelectric performance (b).

To understand the high zT achieved from the aspect of band structure, the lower effective masses for both L and  bands in cubic GeTe as compared to those of cubic IV-VI semiconductors41, 55, 76, could explain the high thermoelectric performance at 800K (cubic phase). Surprisingly, rhombohedral GeTe actually shows an even higher thermoelectric performance than that of cubic one. This is due to the better convergence of split valence bands in rhombohedral but close to cubic phase. In more details, rhombohedral can be approximated as a directionally distorted cubic lattice along the [111] direction. This results in the interaxial angle decreasing from right to acute. And the degree of rhombohedral angle deviating from 90 can be used as a measure of the degree of rhombohedral distortion. As can be seen from Figure 2, the change in the degree of rhombohedral distortion is dominated by Sb-doping for Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe alloys when x≤20%, leading the crystal structure to be closer to cubic in GeTe with higher Sb-doping concentrations. Once the cubic lattice reduces to rhombohedral, the original 4 valleys of L band of split into 3 at L and 1 at Z valleys, whereas the original 12 valleys of Σ band split into 6 along Σ and 6 along η valleys41, 77-78. Moreover, the dominant transporting valence band quickly changes from L band in cubic phase to  band in rhombohedral phase 41. This indicates that the rhombohedral angle plays an critical role on the valence band structure of GeTe, which has been confirmed by band structure calculations49. Comparing to the case of Bi-doping49, Sb-doping in this work leads to a similar valence band convergence through the control of the cubic-to-rhombohedral symmetry breaking (the rhombohedral angle), which results in a comparable zT -enhancement in the low-T rhombohedral phase. In addition, Sb-doping in this work promotes the solubility of PbTe, ensuring a well-reduced lattice thermal conductivity for realizing a high zT in the high-T cubic ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 5 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Journal of the American Chemical Society

phase as well. The above-mentioned 4 in total split valence bands (L3, Z1, Σ6 and η6) in rhombohedral GeTe, largely diversifies the arrangement in energy for a probable higher overall valley degeneracy as illustrated in Figure 6b. This leads to a belief that a better band convergence takes the responsibility for the higher zT in rhombohedral phase than that in cubic phase (Figure 6a). In this work, the degree of rhombohedral distortion can be continuously controlled by Sb-doping and PbTe-alloying (Figure 2), and the band structure mostly favoring thermoelectric performance happens in a rhombohedral phase but close to cubic. Therefore, it can be seen (Figure S5-S7) that material with a smaller concentration of PbTe-alloying requires a higher Sb-doping to optimize the carrier concentration, which leads to a weaker rhombohedral distortion. Quantitatively, when PbTe concentration increases from 10%, 15% to 20%, the required Sb-doping respectively decreases from about 4%, 3% to 2% for optimizing the carrier concentration. This indicates that a high zT in rhombohedral GeTe is expected to have a less PbTe-alloying, while a high zT in cubic GeTe requires more (Figure 6a). Moreover, the high thermoelectric performance in materials shown in Figure 6a is found to be reproducible according to repeated measurements on the same sample (or repeated ones) with a few thermal cycles (Figure S10). This is further supported by the nearly unchanged XRD patterns (Figure S11) on the samples before and after these thermal cycling. Phase transition in GeTe usually leads to a deflection of zT curve. Since Sb-doping dominates the increase of rhombohedral angle toward right angle (Fig. 2b) while the required concentration of Sb-doping for maximizing zT decreases with increasing PbTe-alloying (Fig. 6a), phase transition is found to occur at a lower temperature in materials with a higher Sb-doping concentration (Fig. S12), although PbTe-alloying should increase the phase transition temperature26. The temperature enabling the maximum zT increases with increasing PbTe-alloying, which leads the optimal carrier concentration (n*) for the x=0.1 samples to be higher than that of x=0.15 and x=0.2. This can be understood because n* is strongly temperature dependent via n*~ (m*T)1.5, where m* as the density-of-state mass. Therefore, the decrease in zT with increasing temperature after phase transition in the samples with x=0.1 can be attributed to the bipolar effect (Fig. S5a and S5b) induced by the low carrier concentration. Summary This work demonstrates GeTe alloys as truly top candidates for thermoelectric applications in both rhombohedral phases, where the crystal structures can be well controlled by alloying and doping processes. In addition to the significantly increased PbTe solubility induced by Sb-doping, which sufficiently reduces the lattice thermal conductivity to approach the amorphous limit, the resulting modifications in crystal structure leads to an even higher degeneracy of band valleys in rhombohedral phase for a high thermoelectric performance. Since many thermoelectric materials79-81 enables similar crystal structure modifications, the mechanism of symmetry-breaking for an even higher band degeneracy as illustrated here, could open new possibilities for realizing high thermoelectric performance in low-symmetry materials. Supporting Information. Materials and method, detailed XRD

properties, and the Debye-Callaway model. Acknowledgement This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11474219 and 51772215), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB0703600), Fundamental Research Funds for Science and Technology Innovation Plan of Shanghai (18JC1414600), the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation (Grant No. 20170072210001) and “Shu Guang” Project Supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation. FX and YC are grateful for the financial support from RGC under project numbers 27202516 and 17200017, and the research computing facilities offered by ITS, HKU. References

1. Bell, L. E., Cooling, heating, generating power, and recovering waste heat with thermoelectric systems. Science 2008, 321, 1457-1461. 2. Pei, Y.; Shi, X.; LaLonde, A.; Wang, H.; Chen, L.; Snyder, G. J., Convergence of electronic bands for high performance bulk thermoelectrics. Nature 2011, 473, 66-69. 3. Li, W.; Zheng, L.; Ge, B.; Lin, S.; Zhang, X.; Chen, Z.; Chang, Y.; Pei, Y., Promoting SnTe as an Eco-Friendly Solution for p-PbTe Thermoelectric via Band Convergence and Interstitial Defects. Adv. Mater. 2017, 29 (17), 1605887. 4. Rogers, L. M., Valence band structure of SnTe. J. Appl. Phys. 1968, 1 (2), 845-852. 5. Liu, W.; Tan, X.; Yin, K.; Liu, H.; Tang, X.; Shi, J.; Zhang, Q.; Uher, C., Convergence of conduction bands as a means of enhancing thermoelectric performance of n-type Mg2Si(1-x)Sn(x) solid solutions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2012, 108 (16), 166601. 6. Liu, X.; Zhu, T.; Wang, H.; Hu, L.; Xie, H.; Jiang, G.; Snyder, G. J.; Zhao, X., Low Electron Scattering Potentials in High Performance Mg2Si0.45Sn0.55Based Thermoelectric Solid Solutions with Band Convergence. Adv. Energy Mater. 2013, 3 (9), 1238-1244. 7. Tang, Y. L.; Gibbs, Z. M.; Agapito, L. A.; Li, G.; Kim, H. S.; Nardelli, M. B.; Curtarolo, S.; Snyder, G. J., Convergence of multi-valley bands as the electronic origin of high thermoelectric performance in CoSb3 skutterudites. Nat.. Mater. 2015, 14 (12), 1223-1228. 8. Roychowdhury, S.; Panigrahi, R.; Perumal, S.; Biswas, K., Ultrahigh Thermoelectric Figure of Merit and Enhanced Mechanical Stability of p-type AgSb1–xZnxTe2. ACS Energy Lett. 2017, 2 (2), 349-356. 9. Jovovic, V.; Heremans, J. P., Measurements of the energy band gap and valence band structure ofAgSbTe2. Phys. Rev. B 2008, 77 (24), 245204. 10. Hong, M.; Chen, Z.-G.; Yang, L.; Liao, Z.-M.; Zou, Y.-C.; Chen, Y.-H.; Matsumura, S.; Zou, J., Achieving zT> 2 in p-Type AgSbTe2−xSex Alloys via Exploring the Extra Light Valence Band and Introducing Dense Stacking Faults. Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 1702333. 11. May, A. F.; Flage-Larsen, E.; Snyder, G. J., Electron and phonon scattering in the high-temperature thermoelectric La 3 Te 4− z M z (M= Sb, Bi). Phys. Rev. B 2010, 81 (12), 125205. 12. May, A. F.; Singh, D. J.; Snyder, G. J., Influence of band structure on the large thermoelectric performance of lanthanum telluride. Phys. Rev. B 2009, 79 (15),153101. 13. Wunderlich, W.; Amano, M.; Matsumura, Y., Electronic Band-Structure Calculations of Ba8MexSi46-x Clathrates with Me= Mg, Pd, Ni, Au, Ag, Cu, Zn, Al, Sn. J. Electron. Mater. 2014, 43 (6), 1527-1532. 14. Iversen, B. B.; Palmqvist, A. E. C.; Cox, D. E.; Nolas, G. S.; Stucky, G. D.; Blake, N. P.; Metiu, H., Why are Clathrates Good Candidates for Thermoelectric Materials? J. Solid State Chem. 2000, 149 (2), 455-458. 15. Wang, X.; Li, W.; Wang, C.; Li, J.; Zhang, X. Y.; Zhou, B. Q.; Chen, Y.; Pei, Y. Z., Single parabolic band transport in p-type EuZn2Sb2 thermoelectrics. J. Mater. Chem. A 2017, 5 (46), 24185-24192. 16. Zhang, J.; Song, L.; Madsen, G. K.; Fischer, K. F.; Zhang, W.; Shi, X.; Iversen, B. results, transport B., Designing high-performance layered thermoelectric materials through ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Journal of the American Chemical Society 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

orbital engineering. Nat. Commun. 2016, 7, 10892. 17. Gascoin, F.; Ottensmann, S.; Stark, D.; Haïle, S. M.; Snyder, G. J., Zintl Phases as Thermoelectric Materials: Tuned Transport Properties of the Compounds CaxYb1-xZn2Sb2. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2005, 15 (11), 1860-1864. 18. Zhang, J.; Song, L.; Pedersen, S. H.; Yin, H.; Hung, L. T.; Iversen, B. B., Discovery of high-performance low-cost n-type Mg3Sb2-based thermoelectric materials with multi-valley conduction bands. Nat. Commun. 2017, 8, 13901.. 19. Tamaki, H.; Sato, H. K.; Kanno, T., Isotropic Conduction Network and Defect Chemistry in Mg3+delta Sb2 -Based Layered Zintl Compounds with High Thermoelectric Performance. Adv Mater 2016, 28 (46), 10182-10187. 20. Fu, C.; Bai, S.; Liu, Y.; Tang, Y.; Chen, L.; Zhao, X.; Zhu, T., Realizing high figure of merit in heavy-band p-type half-Heusler thermoelectric materials. Nat. Commun. 2015, 6, 8144. 21. Kim, H.-S.; Heinz, N. A.; Gibbs, Z. M.; Tang, Y.; Kang, S. D.; Snyder, G. J., High thermoelectric performance in (Bi 0.25 Sb 0.75 ) 2 Te 3 due to band convergence and improved by carrier concentration control. Mater. Today 2017, 20 (8), 452-459. 22. von Middendorff, A.; Landwehr, G., Evidence for a second valence band in p-type Bi2Te3 from Magneto-Seebeck and Shubnikov-De Haas-data. Solid State Commun 1972, 11 (1), 203-207. 23. Michiardi, M.; Aguilera, I.; Bianchi, M.; de Carvalho, V. E.; Ladeira, L. O.; Teixeira, N. G.; Soares, E. A.; Friedrich, C.; Blügel, S.; Hofmann, P., Bulk band structure of Bi2Te3. Phys Rev B 2014, 90 (7), 075105. 24. Chen, Z.; Zhang, X.; Pei, Y., Manipulation of Phonon Transport in Thermoelectrics. Adv Mater 2018, 30 (17), e1705617. 25. Ioffe, A. F., Semiconductor thermoelements, and Thermoelectric cooling. Infosearch: London, 1957. 26. Li, J.; Chen, Z.; Zhang, X.; Yu, H.; Wu, Z.; Xie, H.; Chen, Y.; Pei, Y., Simultaneous Optimization of Carrier Concentration and Alloy Scattering for Ultrahigh Performance GeTe Thermoelectrics. Adv Sci (Weinh) 2017, 4 (12), 1700341. 27. Li, J.; Zhang, X.; Lin, S.; Chen, Z.; Pei, Y., Realizing the High Thermoelectric Performance of GeTe by Sb-Doping and Se-Alloying. Chem. Mater. 2016, 29 (2), 605-611. 28. Li, S.; Hinckley, J.; Singh, J.; Bhattacharya, P., Alloy Scattering Potential SiGe. Appl Phys Lett 1993, 63 (10), 1393-1395. 29. Hu, L.; Zhu, T.; Liu, X.; Zhao, X., Point Defect Engineering of High-Performance Bismuth-Telluride-Based Thermoelectric Materials. Adv Funct Mater 2014, 24 (33), 5211-5218. 30. Pei, Y. Z.; Zheng, L. L.; Li, W.; Lin, S. Q.; Chen, Z. W.; Wang, Y. Y.; Xu, X. F.; Yu, H. L.; Chen, Y.; Ge, B. H., Interstitial Point Defect Scattering Contributing to High Thermoelectric Performance in SnTe. Advanced Electronic Materials 2016, 2 (6), 1600019. 31. Shen, J.; Zhang, X.; Lin, S.; Li, J.; Chen, Z.; Li, W.; Pei, Y., Vacancy scattering for enhancing the thermoelectric performance of CuGaTe2solid solutions. J. Mater. Chem. A 2016, 4 (40), 15464-15470. 32. Kim, S. I.; Lee, K. H.; Mun, H. A.; Kim, H. S.; Hwang, S. W.; Roh, J. W.; Yang, D. J.; Shin, W. H.; Li, X. S.; Lee, Y. H.; Snyder, G. J.; Kim, S. W., Dense dislocation arrays embedded in grain boundaries for high-performance bulk thermoelectrics. Science 2015, 348 (6230), 109-114. 33. Chen, Z.; Ge, B.; Li, W.; Lin, S.; Shen, J.; Chang, Y.; Hanus, R.; Snyder, G. J.; Pei, Y., Vacancy-induced dislocations within grains for high-performance PbSe thermoelectrics. Nat. Commun. 2017, 8, 13828. 34. Hsu, K. F.; Loo, S.; Guo, F.; Chen, W.; Dyck, J. S.; Uher, C.; Hogan, T.; Polychroniadis, E. K.; Kanatzidis, M. G., Cubic AgPbmSbTe2+m: Bulk thermoelectric materials with high figure of merit. Science 2004, 303 (5659), 818-821. 35. Biswas, K.; He, J.; Blum, I. D.; Wu, C. I.; Hogan, T. P.; Seidman, D. N.; Dravid, V. P.; Kanatzidis, M. G., High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures. Nature 2012, 489 (7416), 414-8. 36. Pei, Y.; Lensch-Falk, J.; Toberer, E. S.; Medlin, D. L.; Snyder, G. J., High thermoelectric performance in PbTe due to large nanoscale Ag2Te precipitates and La doping. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2011, 21 (2), 241-249. 37. Li, W.; Lin, S.; Weiss, M.; Chen, Z.; Li, J.; Xu, Y.; Zeier, W. G.; Pei, Y., Crystal Structure Induced Ultralow Lattice Thermal Conductivity in Thermoelectric

Page 6 of 7

Ag9AlSe6. Adv. Energy Mater. 2018, 8, 1800030. 38. Zhang, X.; Chen, Z.; Lin, S.; Zhou, B.; Gao, B.; Pei, Y., Promising Thermoelectric Ag5−δTe3 with Intrinsic Low Lattice Thermal Conductivity. ACS Energy Letters 2017, 2 (10), 2470-2477. 39. Li, W.; Lin, S.; Ge, B.; Yang, J.; Zhang, W.; Pei, Y., Low sound velocity contributing to the high thermoelectric performance of Ag8SnSe6. Adv. Sci. 2016, 3 (11), 1600196. 40. Siqi Lin, W. L., Shasha Li, Xinyue Zhang, Zhiwei Chen, Yidong Xu, Yue Chen, YanzhongPei, High Thermoelectric Performance of Ag9GaSe6 Enabled by Low Cutoff Frequency of Acoustic Phonons. Joule 2017, 1, 1-15. 41. Li, J.; Chen, Z. W.; Zhang, X. Y.; Sun, Y. X.; Yang, J.; Pei, Y. Z., Electronic origin of the high thermoelectric performance of GeTe among the p-type group IV monotellurides. NPG Asia Mater. 2017, 9 (3), e353. 42. Perumal, S.; Roychowdhury, S.; Negi, D. S.; Datta, R.; Biswas, K., High thermoelectric performance and enhanced mechanical stability of p-type Ge1–xSbxTe. Chem. Mater. 2015, 27 (20), 7171-7178. 43. Samanta, M.; Biswas, K., Low Thermal Conductivity and High Thermoelectric Performance in (GeTe) 1-2x (GeSe) x (GeS) x: Competition between Solid Solution and Phase Separation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139 (27), 9382-9391. 44. Plachkova, S. K., Thermoelectric Figure of Merit of the System (GeTe)1-x(AgSbTe). phys. stat. sol. (a) 1984, 83, 349-355. 45. Zheng, Z.; Su, X.; Deng, R.; Stoumpos, C.; Xie, H.; Liu, W.; Yan, Y.; Hao, S.; Uher, C.; Wolverton, C.; Kanatzidis, M. G.; Tang, X., Rhombohedral to Cubic Conversion of GeTe via MnTe Alloying Leads to Ultralow Thermal Conductivity, Electronic Band Convergence, and High Thermoelectric Performance. J Am Chem Soc 2018, 140 (7), 2673-2686. 46. Hong, M.; Chen, Z. G.; Yang, L.; Zou, Y. C.; Dargusch, M. S.; Wang, H.; Zou, J., Realizing zT of 2.3 in Ge1-x-y Sbx Iny Te via Reducing the Phase-Transition Temperature and Introducing Resonant Energy Doping. Adv. Mater. 2018, 30 (11), 1705942. 47. Gelbstein, Y.; Davidow, J.; Girard, S. N.; Chung, D. Y.; Kanatzidis, M., Controlling metallurgical phase separation reactions of the Ge0.87Pb0.13Te alloy for high thermoelectric performance. Adv. Energy Mater. 2013, 3 (6), 815-820. 48. T Chattopadhyayt, J. X. B. a. H. G. v. S., Neutron diffraction study on the structural phase transition in GeTe. J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 1987, 20, 1431-1440. 49. Li, J.; Zhang, X. Y.; Chen, Z. W.; Lin, S. Q.; Li, W.; Shen, J. H.; Witting, I. T.; Faghaninia, A.; Chen, Y.; Jain, A.; Chen, L. D.; Snyder, G. J.; Pei, Y. Z., Low-Symmetry Rhombohedral GeTe Thermoelectrics. Joule 2018, 2 (5), 976-987. 50. Crocker, A. J.; Rogers, L. M., Valence band structure of PbTe. J. Phys. Colloques 1968, 29 (C4), C4 129-132. 51. Herman, F.; Kortum, R. L.; Ortenburger, I. B.; Van Dyke, J. P., Relativistic band struture of GeTe, SnTe, PbTe, PbSe and PbS. Le Journal de Physique Colloques 1968, 29 (C4), 62-77. 52. Wang, H.; Schechtel, E.; Pei, Y.; Snyder, G. J., High Thermoelectric Efficiency of n-type PbS. Adv. Energy Mater. 2013, 3 (4), 488-495. 53. Wang, H.; Pei, Y.; LaLonde, A. D.; Snyder, G. J., Heavily Doped p-Type PbSe with High Thermoelectric Performance: An Alternative for PbTe. Adv. Mater. 2011, 23 (11), 1366 -1370 54. Pei, Y.; LaLonde, A.; Iwanaga, S.; Snyder, G. J., High thermoelectric figure of merit in heavy-hole dominated PbTe. Energy Environ. Sci. 2011, 4, 2085–2089. 55. Zhou, M.; Gibbs, Z. M.; Wang, H.; Han, Y.; Xin, C.; Li, L.; Snyder, G. J., Optimization of thermoelectric efficiency in SnTe: the case for the light band. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2014, 16 (38), 20741-8. 56. Yaniv Gelbstein; Joseph Davidow; Ehud Leshem; Oren Pinshow; Moisa, S., Significant lattice thermal conductivity reduction following phase separation of the highly efficient GexPb1-xTe thermoelectric alloys. Phys. Status Solidi B 2014, 251 (7), 1431–1437. 57. Murphy, R. M.; Murray, É. D.; Fahy, S.; Savić, I., Ferroelectric phase transition and the lattice thermal conductivity of Pb1−xGexTe alloys. Phys. Rev. B 2017, 95 (14). 58. Murphy, R. M.; Murray, É. D.; Fahy, S.; Savić, I., Broadband phonon scattering in PbTe-based materials driven near ferroelectric phase transition by strain

ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 7 of 7

or alloying. Phys. Rev. B 2016, 93 (10). 59. Steigmeier, E. F.; Harbeke, G., Soft phonon mode and ferroelectricity in GeTe. Solid State Commun. 1970, 8 (16), 1275-1279. 60. Sist, M.; Kasai, H.; Hedegaard, E. M. J.; Iversen, B. B., Role of vacancies in the high-temperature pseudodisplacive phase transition in GeTe. Phys. Rev. B 2018, 97 (9). 61. SHAMSUDDIN, P. R., S. MISRA*,; ANANTHARAMAN, T. R., Thermodynamic and constitutional studies of the PbTe-GeTe system. J. Mater. Sci. 1975, 10, 1849-1855. 62. SIDNEY G. PARKER, J. E. P., LAURENCE N. SWINK, Determination of the liquidus-solidus curves for the system PbTe-GeTe. J. Mater. Sci. 1974, 9 1829-1832. 63. D. K. Hohnke; Holloway ,, H.; Kaiser, S., Phase relations and transformations in the system PbTe-GeTe. J. Phys. Chem. Solids 1972, 33, 2053-2062. 64. Gelbstein, Y., Phase morphology effects on the thermoelectric properties of Pb0.25Sn0.25Ge0.5Te. Acta Mater. 2013, 61 (5), 1499-1507. 65. Gelbstein, Y. D., J., Highly efficient functional GexPb1-xTe based thermoelectric alloys. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2014, 16 (37), 20120-20126. 66. Li, S. P.; Li, J. Q.; Wang, Q. B.; Wang, L.; Liu, F. S.; Ao, W. Q., Synthesis and thermoelectric properties of the (GeTe)1-x(PbTe)x alloys. Solid State Sci. 2011, 13 (2), 399-403. 67. Gelbstein, Y.; Dado, B.; Ben-Yehuda, O.; Sadia, Y.; Dashevsky, Z.; Dariel, M., Highly efficient Ge-rich GexPb1-xTe thermoelectric alloys. J. Electron. Mater. 2010, 39 (9), 2049-2052. 68. Wu, D.; Zhao, L. D.; Hao, S. Q.; Jiang, Q. K.; Zheng, F. S.; Doak, J. W.; Wu, H. J.; Chi, H.; Gelbstein, Y.; Uher, C.; Wolverton, C.; Kanatzidis, M.; He, J. Q., Origin of the high performance in GeTe-based thermoelectric materials upon Bi2Te3 doping. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136 (32), 11412-11419. 69. Kalinin E.A.; Tananaeva O.I.; Zlomanov V.P.; A.V., N., Directional crystallization of Pb1-xGexTe from the melt. Inorganic Mater. 1987, 23, 141-143. 70. Hazan, E.; Madar, N.; Parag, M.; Casian, V.; Ben-Yehuda, O.; Gelbstein, Y.,

71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76.

77.

78. 79.

80.

81.

Effective electronic mechanisms for optimizing the thermoelectric properties of GeTe-rich alloys. Adv. Electron. Mater. 2015, 1 (11), 1500228. Bierly, J.; Muldawer, L.; Beckman, O., The continuous rhombohedral-gubic transformation in GeTe-SnTe alloys. Acta metall. 1963, 11 (5), 447-454. Perumal, S.; Bellare, P.; Shenoy, U. S.; Waghmare, U. V.; Biswas, K., Low Thermal Conductivity and High Thermoelectric Performance in Sb and Bi Codoped GeTe: Complementary Effect of Band Convergence and Nanostructuring. Chem. Mater. 2017, 5, 056103. Cahill, D. G.; Watson, S. K.; Pohl, R. O., Lower limit to the thermal conductivity of disordered crystals. Phys Rev B 1992, 46 (10), 6131-6140. Cahill, D. G.; Pohl, R. O., Lattice Vibrations and Heat Transport in Crystals and Glasses. Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 1988, 39, 93-121. Callaway, J.; Vonbaeyer, H. C., Effect of Point Imperfections on Lattice Thermal Conductivity. Phys. Rev. 1960, 120 (4), 1149-1154. Pei, Y.; LaLonde, A. D.; Wang, H.; Snyder, G. J., Low effective mass leading to high thermoelectric performance. Energy Environ. Sci. 2012, 5 (7), 7963-7969. Georgiev, S. K. P. T. I., Thermoelectric power of some compositions of GeTe-rich (GeTe)1-x(AgBiTe2)x solid solutions. J. Phys.: Condens. Matter. 1993, 5, 67-84. Baleva, M. I.; Plachkova, S. K., The phase transition in solid solutions of the (Agx2Ge1-xSbx2)Te type. J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 1983, 16. Huang, Z.; Miller, S. A.; Ge, B.; Yan, M.; Anand, S.; Wu, T.; Nan, P.; Zhu, Y.; Zhuang, W.; Snyder, G. J.; Jiang, P.; Bao, X., High Thermoelectric Performance of New Rhombohedral Phase of GeSe stabilized through Alloying with AgSbSe2. Angewandte Chemie. 2017, 129 (45), 14301-14306. Guin, S. N.; Srihari, V.; Biswas, K., Promising thermoelectric performance in n-type AgBiSe2: effect of aliovalent anion doping. J. Mater. Chem. A 2015, 3 (2), 648-655. Pan, L.; Bérardan, D.; Dragoe, N., High thermoelectric properties of n-type AgBiSe2. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135 (13), 4914-4917.

TOC

15

1.0

x=

0.

1

x

. =0

0.

1.5

2

Ge1-x-yPbxSbyTe

x=

2.0

zT

C

Energy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Journal of the American Chemical Society

0.5

C

C

Symmetry degree

L4  6   12

 6 Z L 3

0.0 300

Rhom.

400

500

600

T (K)

Near Cubic

700

ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Cubic

800