SnTe thermoelectric materials with low lattice thermal conductivity synthesized by a self-propagating method under a high-gravity field

Abstract

The conventional fabrication methods (for example, melting and powder metallurgy) of bulk thermoelectric materials are time- and energy-consuming, which restrict their large-scale application. In this work, ultra-fast self-propagating synthesis under a high-gravity field was used to prepare SnTe bulks, which shortened the synthesis time from several days to a few seconds. The grain growth was suppressed and some small pores were reserved in the matrix during the ultra-fast solidification process. The increased grain boundaries and pores (nanoscale to micron scale) enhanced phonon scattering, which greatly decreased the lattice thermal conductivity. The obtained minimum lattice thermal conductivity is 0.81 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, and the maximum zT value is 0.5 (873 K), which is comparable to the best reported results of the undoped SnTe alloy. The ultra-fast non-equilibrium synthesis technique opens up new possibilities to prepare high-efficiency bulk thermoelectric materials with reduced time and energy consumption.