Bottom-Up Synthesis of SnTe-Based Thermoelectric Composites

Bingfei Nan; Xuan Song; Cheng Chang; Ke Xiao; Yu Zhang; Linlin Yang; Sharona Horta; Junshan Li; Khak Ho Lim; Maria Ibáñez; Andreu Cabot

doi:10.1021/acsami.3c00625

Bottom-Up Synthesis of SnTe-Based Thermoelectric Composites

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 May 17;15(19):23380-23389. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c00625. Epub 2023 May 4.

Authors

Bingfei Nan^{1

2}, Xuan Song³, Cheng Chang^{4

5}, Ke Xiao^{1

2}, Yu Zhang⁶, Linlin Yang^{1

2}, Sharona Horta⁴, Junshan Li⁷, Khak Ho Lim^{8

9}, Maria Ibáñez⁴, Andreu Cabot^{1

10}

Affiliations

¹ Catalonia Institute for Energy Research─IREC, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona 08930, Spain.
² Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès 1, Barcelona 08028, Spain.
³ The State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁴ Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Am Campus 1, Klosterneuburg 3400, Austria.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
⁷ Institute of Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China.
⁸ Institute of Zhejiang University─Quzhou, 99 Zheda Rd, Quzhou 324000, Zhejiang, P. R. China.
⁹ College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Rd, Hangzhou 310007, Zhejiang, P. R. China.
¹⁰ ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona 08010, Catalonia, Spain.

Abstract

There is a need for the development of lead-free thermoelectric materials for medium-/high-temperature applications. Here, we report a thiol-free tin telluride (SnTe) precursor that can be thermally decomposed to produce SnTe crystals with sizes ranging from tens to several hundreds of nanometers. We further engineer SnTe-Cu₂SnTe₃ nanocomposites with a homogeneous phase distribution by decomposing the liquid SnTe precursor containing a dispersion of Cu_1.5Te colloidal nanoparticles. The presence of Cu within the SnTe and the segregated semimetallic Cu₂SnTe₃ phase effectively improves the electrical conductivity of SnTe while simultaneously reducing the lattice thermal conductivity without compromising the Seebeck coefficient. Overall, power factors up to 3.63 mW m^-1 K^-2 and thermoelectric figures of merit up to 1.04 are obtained at 823 K, which represent a 167% enhancement compared with pristine SnTe.

Keywords: Cu2SnTe3; copper telluride; molecular precursor; nanocomposite; thermoelectric; tin telluride.