Significantly improved thermoelectric performance of Ag-doped Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 films deriving from high-efficient carrier filtering effect

Abstract

Selective carrier energy filtering effect is an important strategy to promote the power factor of a thermoelectrical materials, which requires an appropriate potential barrier and coherent interfaces between the secondary phase and the host matrix. Although the energy filtering effect has been realized in various bulk systems, its efficiency in promoting their thermoelectric performance is limited. Herein, simultaneously increased electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient are investigated in Ag-doped Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 films, leading to an increasement of the power factor up to 700%. Microstructure analysis reveals that the thin films prepared from magnetron sputtering consist of highly uniform nanocrystal domains, which construct coherent interfaces somewhere. Moreover, the local Ag doping might depress the Fermi level, providing the possibility to form a suitable potential barrier between the adjacent nanograins. This study suggests a facile method to significantly enhance the thermoelectric performance via energy filtering effect in high quality thin films.