Abstract
Cu2SnSe3 has been considered as a potential thermoelectric material owing to its tunable transport properties and its phonon-glass-electron-crystal (PGEC) characteristics. Here, p-type pure and In-doped Cu2SnSe3 samples are synthesized by the solid-state sintering technique. Cubic structure with Foverline{4}3m space group is maintained for all the samples, and a linear increase in lattice parameter with increasing In concentration has been observed. The nature of electrical resistivity changes from semiconducting to metallic behavior for samples with x > 0.10. The decrease in both electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient with an increase in x is attributed to the increased hole concentration. Such a scenario is confirmed from the room-temperature Hall effect measurements. Indium doping also reduces the thermal conductivity of the Cu2SnSe3 system as a result of increased phonon scattering due to the mass fluctuation. Concurrently, enhancement of thermoelectric power factor (PF) and figure of merit (ZT) is achieved with In doping at Sn site of Cu2SnSe3. The maximum ZT of 0.04 has been exhibited by the sample with x = 0.25 at 400 K, which is six times higher than that of the undoped Cu2SnSe3.
Highlights
The search for environment friendly and renewable energy sources is on the rise and could hold the key to combating issues like climate change, dwindling fossil fuel reserves, and growing global energy demands
Cu2In1-xSnxSe3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25) samples prepared by the solid-state reaction sintering technique adopt a cubic structure which is analyzed by X-ray diffraction studies
The quantitative investigation of the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns by the Rietveld refinement technique reveals the increase in lattice parameter a with increasing In concentration, indicating the successful substitution of Sn by In
Summary
The search for environment friendly and renewable energy sources is on the rise and could hold the key to combating issues like climate change, dwindling fossil fuel reserves, and growing global energy demands. Cu2SnSe3 obeys the phonon-glass-electroncrystal (PGEC) concept, which is usually exhibited by the widely investigated caged compounds like clathrates and skutterudites [1, 12,13,14,15,16,17] This concept was proposed by Slack, which states that to achieve high TE performance in a material, the glass-like thermal conductivity and crystal-like electron transport must co-exist. The detailed investigation of the TE properties of Cu2In1xSnxSe3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25) revealed a significant increase in the power factor (PF = S2r) together with a simultaneous decrease in thermal conductivity This led to an enhancement in ZT by six times as compared to the pristine Cu2SnSe3
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