Structural Features and Thermoelectric Properties of PbTe-based Materials

Thermoelectric (TE) materials are used to directly interconvert heat and electricity. The semiconductor PbTe with narrow band gap is one of the leading thermoelectric materials in mid-temperature range due to intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivity and large Seebeck coefficient. Recently, various strategies have produced p-type and n-type PbTe-based materials with greatly enhanced TE properties. However, there are still many fascinating features which are needed to be studied. First, phase analysis and TE properties of binary polycrystalline Pb‒Te samples prepared by various heat treatments have been investigated. Since europium with its 4f electrons was expected to have strong influence on the thermoelectric behavior of PbTe, the constitution and thermoelectric behavior of two substitution schemes with possible Eu2+ and Eu3+ in the Pb–Eu–Te ternary system have been examined. As sodium is widely used as substituting element for p-type PbTe-based TE materials, the crystal structural features and TE properties of two series of polycrystalline samples Pb1-yNayTe1-y/2 and Pb1-xNaxTe have been studied. The local atomic arrangement of sodium by different substitution schemes has been revealed by NMR. Finally, we present the reproducibility of TE properties and microstructure evolutions of high-ZT Eu-substituted and Na-substituted PbTe during different heat treatments. From binary PbTe to ternary Pb–Eu–Te and Pb–Na–Te, and final with quaternary Pb–Eu–Na–Te, the comprehensive picture of the structure and TE properties for Pb–Eu–Na–Te system is constructed