Facile composite engineering to boost thermoelectric power conversion in ZnSb device

Vaskuri C.S. Theja, Vaithinathan Karthikeyan, Sanjib Nayak, Kadir Ufuk Kandira, Dani S. Assi, Venkataramanan Kannan, Vellaisamy A.L. Roy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Zinc antimonide (ZnSb) is one of the alternatives for commercial thermoelectric materials due to its non-toxic, low-cost, and earth-abundant nature. However, its simple crystal structure causes strong phonon vibrations, which enhance lattice thermal conductivity. In this work, we systematically studied the effect of γ-Al2O3 nano-inclusions on ZnSb. Our results show that composite engineering imparts lattice phonon scattering for reduced thermal conductivity and low-energy carrier filtering for enhanced Seebeck coefficient. The obtained figure of merit in the ZnSb+5% γ-Al2O3 sample at 673 K is nearly two-fold higher than the pristine sample. Our fabricated 2-leg ZnSb+5% γ-Al2O3 device displayed a power generation of 0.11 μW at ΔT of 200 °C. Furthermore, adding γ-Al2O3 nano-inclusions improve the mechanical and thermal stabilities due to grain boundary hardening and dispersion strengthening. Overall, the addition of γ-Al2O3 nano-inclusions to ZnSb enhancing the Seebeck coefficient, reducing thethermal conductivity, and improving mechanical and thermal stability significantly.

Original languageEnglish
Article number111329
JournalJournal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids
Volume178
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2023

Keywords

  • Nano-inclusion
  • Phonon scattering
  • Thermal conductivity
  • ZnSb
  • γ-AlO

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