Issue 6, 2018
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Unusual consequences of donor and acceptor doping on the thermoelectric properties of the MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy†

Y. Liu,‡a   D. Z. Zhou,b   Y. Q. Li,b   A. J. Hong, ORCID logo *bc   J. H. Sui,d   J. M. Liub  and  Z. F. Ren ORCID logo a  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Physics and TcSUH, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA

b Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

c Jiangxi Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Sensors, School of Physics, Communication and Electronics, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China
E-mail: 6312886haj@163.com
Tel: +86 079188122390

d School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

Abstract

MgAgSb alloys have been demonstrated to be one of the two best classes of low-temperature thermoelectric materials. In this study, a series of dopants to the slightly Ag- and Sb-deficient MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy are studied to explore their consequences on the power factor (PF) and thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) of the alloy. The systematic study reveals that starting from the MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy, the donor dopant degrades both the PF and ZT, whereas the acceptor dopant enhances the PF without affecting the ZT. Both the donor and acceptor make the total thermal conductivity higher. A full-scale thermoelectric computation based on first-principles calculations and the Boltzmann transport theory is carried out to validate the experimental results. The calculated results for the donors and acceptors are semi-quantitatively consistent with our experimental results. The present study suggests that carrier doping alone may not be sufficient to significantly improve the overall thermoelectric performance of the MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy.

Graphical abstract: Unusual consequences of donor and acceptor doping on the thermoelectric properties of the MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TA08657A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Sep 2017
Accepted
05 Jan 2018
First published
05 Jan 2018

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018,6, 2600-2611

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Unusual consequences of donor and acceptor doping on the thermoelectric properties of the MgAg0.97Sb0.99 alloy

Y. Liu, D. Z. Zhou, Y. Q. Li, A. J. Hong, J. H. Sui, J. M. Liu and Z. F. Ren, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2018, 6, 2600 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA08657A

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