Electric wind induced texturing for enhanced thermoelectric performance of p-type Mg3Sb2-based materials

Abstract

High-intensity electric pulse treatment (EPT) can induce electric wind effect in materials, which facilitates the grain rearrangement and reorientation in polycrystalline samples. For the first time, this study employed the EPT technique to construct texture in Mg3.04Ag0.02Sb2 bulk compounds, and a highly conductive channel was produced to promote the charge carrier transport. This leads to a 53 % improvement in carrier mobility of the EPT sample (4#20) over the pristine one at room temperature. Additionally, EPT does not affect the carrier concentration of the material, making the EPT samples possess significantly improved electrical conductivities and untouched Seebeck coefficients. Consequently, a 36 % improvement in zT value is achieved for the EPT sample (4#20) at 723 K, compared to the pristine one. This work demonstrates that EPT technique is an effective approach for constructing textured Mg3Sb2-based materials, offering a valuable avenue for high thermoelectric performance in other potential materials via manipulating properties-related texture.