Authors: A A Shabaldin L V Prokof’eva G J Snyder P P Konstantinov G N Isachenko A V Asach
Publish Date: 2015/12/29
Volume: 45, Issue: 3, Pages: 1871-1874
Abstract
ZnSb would be a good thermoelectric material with carrier concentration above 1019/cm3 but unfortunately this has been shown to be difficult to achieve particularly with Sn as a dopant Two series ZnSb samples doped with Sn and ZnSn were prepared using hotpressing technics and their thermoelectric properties were investigated in the temperature range from 300 K to 700 K The tin content of the samples was in the range from 01 to 05 at Surprisingly samples with lower tin content achieved higher carrier concentration which is beneficial for thermoelectric performance Samples doped with 01 at Sn achieved Hall carrier concentration above 1 × 1019/cm3 reaching ZT of 09 while for samples doped with 05 at Sn the Hall carrier concentration was close to the hole concentration of pure ZnSb Also by analyzing hysteresis present in the heating–cooling cycles we conclude that the role of intrinsic defects in ZnSb is important and that these defects clearly determine the ability of ZnSb to achieve ZT near 1
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