Issue 3, 2017

Tuning the carrier scattering mechanism to effectively improve the thermoelectric properties

Abstract

A high thermoelectric power factor not only enables a potentially high figure of merit ZT but also leads to a large output power density, and hence it is pivotal to find an effective route to improve the power factor. Previous reports on the manipulation of carrier scattering mechanisms (e.g. ionization scattering) were mainly focused on enhancing the Seebeck coefficient. In contrast, here we demonstrate that by tuning the carrier scattering mechanism in n-type Mg3Sb2-based materials, it is possible to noticeably improve the Hall mobility, from ∼19 to ∼77 cm2 V−1 s−1, and hence substantially increase the power factor by a factor of 3, from ∼5 to ∼15 μW cm−1 K−2. The enhancement in mobility is mainly due to the reason that ionization scattering has been converted into mixed scattering between ionization and acoustic phonon scattering, which less effectively scatters the carriers. The strategy of tuning the carrier scattering mechanism to improve the mobility should be widely applicable to various material systems for achieving better thermoelectric performance.

Graphical abstract: Tuning the carrier scattering mechanism to effectively improve the thermoelectric properties

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Nov 2016
Accepted
14 Feb 2017
First published
14 Feb 2017

Energy Environ. Sci., 2017,10, 799-807

Tuning the carrier scattering mechanism to effectively improve the thermoelectric properties

J. Shuai, J. Mao, S. Song, Q. Zhu, J. Sun, Y. Wang, R. He, J. Zhou, G. Chen, D. J. Singh and Z. Ren, Energy Environ. Sci., 2017, 10, 799 DOI: 10.1039/C7EE00098G

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