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Low lattice thermal conductivity and improved power factor in Ga-substituted CuSbTe2 alloys for mid-temperature thermoelectric application

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Abstract

I-V-VI based thermoelectric materials recently attracted the great attention due to their unique functional properties. Herein we have performed the systematic study of polycrystalline CuSb1-xGaxTe2 alloys with the nominal composition of x = 0.01, x = 0.05, x = 0.15. The samples were synthesized by the two-step process as follows melting and quenching, Ball milling and spark plasma sintering. The presence of various scattering mechanisms such as point defect scattering, alloy scattering and Umklapp scattering significantly reduced the lattice thermal conductivity of 0.56 W/mK at 453 K. The improved power factor of 0.396 mW/mK2 attained due to the highest weighted mobility of 81.04 cm2/Vs for x = 0.01 sample.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the management of SRM Institute of Science and Technology for the support through SEED and STARTUP grant. We also thank DST SERB (CRG/2021/008427), CSIR-HRDG (03/1507/23/EMR-II) and DST-FIST (SR/FST/PS-II/2021/190(G)), Govt. of India for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Functional Materials and Energy Devices Laboratory, Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, 603 203, India

    S. Harish, V. Vijay, J. Archana & M. Navaneethan

  2. Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shizuoka University, 3-5-1 Johoku, Naka-Ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 432-8011, Japan

    H. Ikeda

  3. Nanotechnology Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, 603 203, India

    M. Navaneethan

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Temperature dependent Lorentz number, thermal diffusivity, Specific heat capacity and weighted mobility of CuSb1-xGaxTe2, (x = 0.01, x = 0.05, x = 0.15) samples were provided in the supporting information.

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Harish, S., Vijay, V., Ikeda, H. et al. Low lattice thermal conductivity and improved power factor in Ga-substituted CuSbTe2 alloys for mid-temperature thermoelectric application. emergent mater. 7, 163–170 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42247-023-00602-z

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