Alkali metal doped p-type PbTe is a canonical thermoelectric material studied extensively for heat-to-power generation at high temperature. Most reports have indirectly indicated alkali metals to be conventional with PbTe forming homogeneous solid solutions. Using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), we show the presence of platelet-like nanostructures in these systems containing Na and/or K. By combining further TEM and semiclassical theoretical calculations based on a modified Debye model of the lattice thermal conductivity, we explain the lack of efficacy of these nanostructures for strong phonon scattering. These findings are important in the understanding of alkali metals as carriers in p-type lead chalcogenides. These results also underscore that not all nanostructures favorably scatter phonons in a matrix; an insight that may help in further improvements of the power factor and the overall figure of merit.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl203626n | DOI Listing |
Chem Sci
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 China
Thermoelectric technology plays an important role in developing sustainable clean energy and reducing carbon emissions, offering new opportunities to alleviate current energy and environmental crises. Nowadays, GeTe has emerged as a highly promising thermoelectric candidate for mid-temperature applications, due to its remarkable thermoelectric figure of merit () of 2.7.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Phys Chem Lett
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Institute of Solid State Physics, HFIPS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China.
Unveiling the nonlinear interactions between terahertz (THz) electromagnetic waves and free carriers in two-dimensional materials is crucial for the development of high-field and high-frequency electronic devices. Herein, we investigate THz nonlinear transport dynamics in a monolayer graphene/MoS heterostructure using time-resolved THz spectroscopy with intense THz pulses as the probe. Following ultrafast photoexcitation, the interfacial charge transfer establishes a nonequilibrium carrier redistribution, leaving free holes in the graphene and trapping electrons in the MoS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Phys Chem Lett
January 2025
School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, U.K.
Nanoscale Adv
December 2024
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay Mumbai Maharashtra India 400076
Using the spectral energy density method, we predict the phonon scattering mean lifetimes of polycrystalline graphene (PC-G) having polycrystallinity only along the -axis with seven different misorientation (tilt) angles at room temperature. Contrary to other studies on PC-G samples, our results indicate a strong dependence of the thermal conductivity (TC) on the tilt angles which we attribute to careful preparation of our grain boundaries-based samples without introducing any local strains and ensuring periodic boundary conditions for the supercells along the and axes. We also show that the square of the group velocity components along and axes and the phonon lifetimes are uncorrelated and the phonon density of states are almost the same for all samples with different tilt angles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFiScience
November 2024
School of Electronic Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China.
The van der Waals thiophosphate GaPS presents additional opportunities for gallium-based semiconductors, but limited research on phonon interactions has hindered optimization on thermal properties. This research undertakes a comprehensive investigation into the anharmonic phonon scattering within GaPS. The findings reveal pronounced anharmonic scattering, with both cubic and quartic phonon scatterings significantly influencing phonon redshift and broadening.
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