Entropy engineering promotes thermoelectric performance in p-type chalcogenides

Binbin Jiang; Yong Yu; Hongyi Chen; Juan Cui; Xixi Liu; Lin Xie; Jiaqing He

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23569-z

Entropy engineering promotes thermoelectric performance in p-type chalcogenides

Nat Commun. 2021 May 28;12(1):3234. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23569-z.

Authors

Binbin Jiang^#¹, Yong Yu^#¹, Hongyi Chen², Juan Cui¹, Xixi Liu¹, Lin Xie¹, Jiaqing He^{3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Thermoelectric Materials, Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.
² College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Thermoelectric Materials, Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. hejq@sustech.edu.cn.
⁴ Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Photonic-Thermal-Electrical Energy Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. hejq@sustech.edu.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage Technologies, Southern University of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Shenzhen, China. hejq@sustech.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

We demonstrate that the thermoelectric properties of p-type chalcogenides can be effectively improved by band convergence and hierarchical structure based on a high-entropy-stabilized matrix. The band convergence is due to the decreased light and heavy band energy offsets by alloying Cd for an enhanced Seebeck coefficient and electric transport property. Moreover, the hierarchical structure manipulated by entropy engineering introduces all-scale scattering sources for heat-carrying phonons resulting in a very low lattice thermal conductivity. Consequently, a peak zT of 2.0 at 900 K for p-type chalcogenides and a high experimental conversion efficiency of 12% at ΔT = 506 K for the fabricated segmented modules are achieved. This work provides an entropy strategy to form all-scale hierarchical structures employing high-entropy-stabilized matrix. This work will promote real applications of low-cost thermoelectric materials.