Large thermoelectric power factors and impact of texturing on the thermal conductivity in polycrystalline SnSe
Abstract
Single crystals of SnSe have been reported to have very high thermoelectric efficiencies with a maximum figure merit zT = 2.5. This outstanding performance is due to ultralow thermal conductivities. We report on the synthesis of highly textured polycrystalline SnSe ingots with large single-crystal magnitude power factors, S2/ρ = 0.2-0.4 mW m-1 K-2 between 300-600 K, increasing to 0.9 mW m-1 K-2 at 800 K, and bulk thermal conductivity values κ300K = 1.5 W m-1 K-1. However, small SnSe ingots, which were measured in their entirety, were found to have a substantially reduced κ300K = 0.6 W m-1 K-1. Microscopy and diffraction revealed two distinct types of texturing within the hot-pressed ingots. In the interior, large coherent domains of SnSe platelets with a ∼45° orientation with respect to the pressing direction are found, while the platelets are preferentially oriented at 90° to the pressing direction at the top and bottom of the ingots. Fitting the κ(T) data suggests an increase in defect scattering for the smaller ingots, which is in keeping with the presence of regions of structural disorder due to the change in texturing. Combining the measured S2/ρ with the bulk ingot κ values yields zT = 1.1 at 873 K.
Citation
Popuri , S R , Pollet , M , Decourt , R , Morrison , F D , Bennett , N S & Bos , J W G 2016 , ' Large thermoelectric power factors and impact of texturing on the thermal conductivity in polycrystalline SnSe ' , Journal of Materials Chemistry C , vol. 4 , no. 8 , pp. 1685-1691 . https://doi.org/10.1039/c6tc00204h
Publication
Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2050-7534Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright 2016 the Authors. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6TC00204H
Description
This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2012-576).Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.