A nanostructure has a significant role in enhancing the power factor and preventing the heat propagation for thermoelectric materials. Herein, we propose a unique segregated and percolated (SP) microphase-separated structure to enhance the thermoelectric performance of SnTe. The SP structure is composed of insoluble SnTe and AgCuTe, in which AgCuTe with ultralow lattice thermal conductivity undergoes a solid-phase welding during a spark plasma sintering process and forms continuous percolated layers at the interface of isolated SnTe. The SP structure achieved a simultaneous scattering for low energy holes due to the energy offset of the valence band maximum between SnTe and AgCuTe and for phonons due to the noncoherent interfaces between SnTe and AgCuTe, resulting in a high Seebeck coefficient of ∼219.4 μV/K and a low lattice thermal conductivity of ∼1.1 W m-1 K-1 at 800 K for (SnTe)0.55(AgCuTe)0.45. The thermoelectric performance was further enhanced by means of the cosubstitution of In and Mn for Sn in the SnTe lattice, inducing resonance levels and extra phonon scattering. As a result, the SP structure combined with In/Mn codoping enable us to achieve a low lattice thermal conductivity of 0.47 W m-1 K-1, a peak ZT of ∼1.45 at 800 K, and a high average ZT of ∼0.73 (400-800 K) for (Sn0.98In0.01Mn0.01Te)0.75(AgCuTe)0.25.
Keywords: SnTe; energy filtering effect; segregated and percolated structure; solid phase welding; thermoelectric performance.