Beneficial Contribution of Alloy Disorder to Electron and Phonon Transport in Half-Heusler Thermoelectric Materials

被引:398
作者
Xie, Hanhui [1 ,2 ]
Wang, Heng [3 ]
Pei, Yanzhong [3 ]
Fu, Chenguang [1 ,2 ]
Liu, Xiaohua [1 ,2 ]
Snyder, G. Jeffrey [3 ]
Zhao, Xinbing [1 ,2 ]
Zhu, Tiejun [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Zhejiang Univ, Dept Mat Sci & Engn, State Key Lab Silicon Mat, Hangzhou 310027, Peoples R China
[2] Zhejiang Univ, Key Lab Adv Mat & Applicat Batteries Zhejiang Pro, Hangzhou 310027, Peoples R China
[3] CALTECH, Dept Mat Sci, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA
关键词
thermoelectrics; charge transport; alloys; doping; LATTICE THERMAL-CONDUCTIVITY; FIGURE-OF-MERIT; ENHANCEMENT; SCATTERING; PERFORMANCE; EFFICIENCY; STABILITY; MASS;
D O I
10.1002/adfm.201300663
中图分类号
O6 [化学];
学科分类号
0703 ;
摘要
Electron and phonon transport characteristics determines the potential of thermoelectric materials for power generation or refrigeration. This work shows that, different from most of high performance thermoelectric materials with dominant acoustic phonon scattering, the promising ZrNiSn based half-Heusler thermoelectric solid solutions exhibit an alloy scattering dominated charge transport. A low deformation potential and a low alloy scattering potential are found for the solid solutions, which is beneficial to maintain a relatively high electron mobility despite of the large effective mass, and can be intrinsic favorable features contributing to the noticeably high power factors of ZrNiSn based alloys. A quantitive description of the different phonon scattering mechanisms suggests that the point defect scattering is the most important mechanism that determines the phonon transport process of the solid solutions. The present results indicate that alloying can be an effective approach for such materials systems to enhance thermoelectric figure of merit ZT by reducing phonon thermal conductivity, while minimizing the deterioration of charge mobility due to the low alloy scatteirng potential.
引用
收藏
页码:5123 / 5130
页数:8
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