Abstract
AbstractA recent theoretical study suggested that the substitution of Cd in PbTe can result in a distortion in the electronic density of states (DOS) near the bottom of the conduction band in PbTe. In this study we explored the effect of Cd doping on the thermoelectric properties of PbTe in an effort to test the theoretical prediction that DOS distortion can increase the Seebeck coefficient. We present detailed investigation of structural and spectroscopic data, transmission electron microscopy, as well as transport properties of samples of PbI2 doped PbTe-x% CdTe (x = 1, 3, 5, 7, 10). All samples follow the Pisarenko relationship and no enhancement of the Seebeck coefficient was observed due to DOS distortions. A low lattice thermal conductivity was achieved by nanostructuring observed via high resolution transmission electron microscopy. A maximum ZT of ˜1.2 at ˜720 K was achieved for the 1% CdTe sample.
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