The thermoelectric properties of the Zintl compound YbZn2Sb2 with isoelectronic substitution of Zn by Mn in the anionic (Zn2Sb2)2− framework have been studied. The p-type YbZn2−x Mn x Sb2 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4) samples were prepared via melting followed by annealing and hot-pressing. Thermoelectric property measurement showed that the Mn substitution effectively lowered the thermal conductivity for all the samples, while it significantly increased the Seebeck coefficient for x < 0.2. As a result, a dimensionless figure of merit ZT of approximately 0.61 to 0.65 was attained at 726 K for x = 0.05 to 0.15, compared with the ZT of ~0.48 in the unsubstituted YbZn2Sb2.
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Acknowledgements
The work at Zhejiang University is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2007CB607502), the National “863” Hi-tech. Program of China (2007AA03Z234) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (50601022). The work at Clemson University is supported by a DOE/EPSCoR Implementation Grant (#DE-FG02-04ER-46139), and in addition by SC EPSCoR Office/Clemson University cost sharing.
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Zhu, T.J., Yu, C., He, J. et al. Thermoelectric Properties of Zintl Compound YbZn2Sb2 with Mn Substitution in Anionic Framework. J. Electron. Mater. 38, 1068–1071 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-009-0667-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-009-0667-9