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Thermoelectric properties of nitrogen-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films

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Abstract

Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) becomes a potential thermoelectric material due to its good electrical conductivity and low thermal conductivity, while the low Seebeck coefficient limits its high performance. In this paper, N element dopants were introduced to Ge2Sb2Te5 to regulate their carrier concentration and thus optimize their thermoelectric properties. The formation of Ge–N bond reduces the carrier concentration and adjusts the band structure. N doping suppresses Ge–Te bonding and expands the adjacent Te atomic distance, which reduces the valence band top dominated by Te atom and broadens the band gap. Adjustment of carrier concentration and the formation of nitride change the electric transport capacity and the resistivity increases significantly. It is worth noting that the carrier concentration is significantly reduced, while the Seebeck coefficient exhibits a large loss at high doping quantities. According to the single parabolic band (SPB) curves, it is evident that the loss of the Seebeck coefficient is attributable to the reduced effective mass of the carriers. At 380 K, the power factor of 1N–Ge2Sb2Te5 film can reach 1.503 × 102 W/K2 m, while those of 2N and 3N–Ge2Sb2Te5 film are not well optimized. Appropriate amount of N element doping can effectively improve the thermoelectric performance of Ge2Sb2Te5.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The present work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51401090).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Material Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Jiangsu Province, No. 2, Mengxi Road, Zhenjiang, 212003, China

    Dongjie Qian, Jiale Miao, Pengyue Yuan, Yanyan Yuan & Rui Lan

  2. Yantai Engineering & Technology College, No. 92 Zhujiang Road, Yantai ETDZ, Yantai, 264000, Shandong Province, China

    Dongdong Song

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  1. Dongjie Qian
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Contributions

Conceptualization: RL; Methodology: JM and DS; Formal analysis and investigation: DQ and PY; Writing—original draft preparation: DQ; Writing—review and editing: RL and YY; Funding acquisition: RL; Supervision: RL and YY.

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Correspondence to Rui Lan.

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Qian, D., Miao, J., Yuan, P. et al. Thermoelectric properties of nitrogen-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 12750–12759 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08221-w

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