A synergy of fine-tuning the carrier concentration and implementing scatter of heat-carrying phonons is vital to the thermoelectric study of narrow bandgap semiconductors. In this work, we adopted a synergistic charge-balanced compensation-doping approach derived from the interplay between heterovalent Sb dopants and Sn vacancies in narrow band gap semiconductor SnTe, a lead-free alternative to the classic thermoelectric material PbTe. Specifically, we designed a composition series of Sn_1-xSb_2x/3Te (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.20 in steps of 0.02), in which every three Sn²⁺ are substituted by two Sb³⁺ and one Sn vacancy. To the first order, such chemical composition does not contribute net charge carriers in the context of electron counting and also ensures that the composition of the primary phase is not altered by the formation of secondary phase Sb₂Te₃, which greatly simplifies the data analysis. Interestingly, we found that the measured carrier concentration gradually reduced with increasing Sb content and in turn increased the Seebeck coefficient. Meanwhile, the coexistence of Sb dopants and Sn vacancies effectively scattered heat-carrying phonons at elevated temperatures. Consequently, a peak ZT value of ∼1.1 at 873K was achieved in the x=0.12 sample. These results offer a new avenue for thermoelectric study of narrow bandgap semiconductors. Defect equation:

微调载流子浓度和实现载热声子散射的协同作用对于窄带隙半导体的热电研究至关重要。在这项工作中，我们采用了一种窄带隙半导体SnTe中的杂化Sb掺杂剂和Sn空位之间相互作用的协同电荷平衡补偿掺杂方法，这是传统热电材料PbTe的无铅替代品。具体来说，我们设计了一个组合物系列的Sn _{1- X}的Sb _{2 X / 3}值Te（0≤ X ≤0.20 0.02步骤），其中每三个的Sn ²⁺由两个锑取代³⁺和一个锡空位。首先，这种化学组成不会在电子计数的情况下贡献净电荷载流子，并且还确保了第一相的组成不会因形成第二相Sb ₂ Te ₃而改变，从而极大地简化了数据分析。 。有趣的是，我们发现测得的载流子浓度随着Sb含量的增加而逐渐降低，进而又增加了塞贝克系数。同时，Sb掺杂物和Sn空位的共存有效地分散了高温下的载热声子。因此，x轴上的ZT峰值在1.1K时达到〜1.1= 0.12样本。这些结果为窄带隙半导体的热电研究提供了新的途径。缺陷方程式：