Enhancement of the thermoelectric properties of Zintl phase SrMgBi by Na-doping.

Due to their low lattice thermal conductivity and manipulable electronic properties, ABX Zintl phases have been widely studied for thermoelectric applications. This has motivated numerous efforts to focus on the exploration of novel ABX Zintl thermoelectrics. In this study, SrMgBi was systematically investigated to reveal its potential for thermoelectric application. Pristine SrMgBi exhibits an intrinsic p-type semiconducting behavior. The Hall carrier concentration () was efficiently increased to ∼9 × 10 cm by Na-substitution at the Sr site. The increased leads to enhanced electrical conductivity, but reduced Seebeck coefficient. Moreover, Na doping effectively decreased the thermal conductivity because of the intensified scattering from defects and lattice distortion. Thus, the of the Na-doped SrMgBi can reach 0.44 and be extremely higher than that of the pristine one. The well-known single parabolic band (SPB) model estimated that the increase in and through doping boosts the electrical conductivity. This work sheds light on the discovery of new prospective thermoelectric materials and demonstrates that Bi-based p-type ABX Zintl phases can achieve high thermoelectric performance.