Abstract
Nanostructured samples of FeSb\(_{1.84}\)Te\(_{0.16}\) were prepared using a hot-press method and thermoelectric properties were studied. Nanostructured samples exhibited significantly reduced values for the thermal conductivity. Te-doping, in addition to enhancing point-defect scattering, also induced a semiconductor-to-metal transition which increased the power factor value at low temperatures. Both the power factor and the thermal conductivity were shown to decrease with a decrease in hot-pressing temperature. The combined effect resulted in a figure-of-merit ZT of 0.022 at 100 K for the optimized sample, a 62 % increase over the single crystal counterpart. Within nanostructured samples, ZT increases by as much as 11 times.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge funding for this work by the Department of Defense, United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s MURI program under contract FA9550-10-1-0533. C.O. wishes to thank B. Mihaila, T. Hoeler, and Peter Czajka for their helpful comments on the manuscript.
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Pokharel, M., Zhao, H.Z., Koirala, M. et al. Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance of Te-doped FeSb\(_{2}\) Nanocomposite. J Low Temp Phys 176, 122–130 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-014-1148-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-014-1148-y