The discovery and design of compounds with intrinsically low thermal conductivity, especially compounds with a special bonding nature and stable crystal structure, is a new direction to broaden the scope of potential thermoelectric (TE) materials.
Solvothermally-prepared tetrahedrite (Cu12Sb4S13) nanostructures with unique multiply-voided architecture were found to form via an oriented attachment growth process.
A modified polyol process produces undoped and doped tetrahedrite. Bottom-up solution-phase formation of nanomaterial is investigated. Impact of nanostructuring and doping on thermal properties is evaluated.
We demonstrated the introduction of Cl to thermoelectric chlorine (Cl−)-doped Cu3SbS4 nanoflakes by a one-pot in situ CuS template solution approach. An approximately eightfold improvement in the power factor (380 μW m−1 K−2) is observed for chlorine (Cl−)-doped Cu3SbS4 as compared to Cu3SbS4 without Cl doping at 500 K.
The high performance of the iron-stabilized cubic structure of Cu3SbS3 makes it a strong candidate for thermoelectric application.