Preparation and thermoelectric properties of sulfur doped Ag2Te nanoparticlesvia solvothermal methods

Abstract

In this work, n-type Ag₂Te nanoparticles are prepared by a solvothermal approach with uniform and controllable sizes, e.g. 5–15 nm. The usage of dodecanethiol during the synthesis effectively introduces sulfur doping into the sample, which optimizes the charge carrier concentration of the nanoparticles to >1 × 10²⁰ cm⁻³. This allows us to achieve the desired electrical resistivities of <5 × 10⁻⁶ Ω m. It is demonstrated that Ag₂Te particles prepared by this solvothermal process can exhibit high ZT values, e.g. 15 nm Ag₂Te nanoparticles with effective sulphur doping show a maximum ZT value of ∼0.62 at 550 K.