Skip to main content
Log in

Effects of Pb doping on the electrical transport performance of Cu1.98Se

  • Electronic materials
  • Published:
Journal of Materials Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Cu2−δSe is an eco-friendly thermoelectric candidate owing to Cu ions migration in its high-temperature beta phase, and meanwhile the liquid-like Cu ions deteriorate the stability and reliability of materials. Here, Pb2+ ion was introduced into the Cu1.98Se lattice to improve the thermoelectric properties and the stability. The Pb-doped Cu1.98−xPbxSe (x = 0–0.035) compounds prepared by a facile solvothermal synthesis and microwave sintering. The obtained results reveal that the power factor of the doped samples greatly improved up to 1454 μW m−1 K−2 at 800 K, which was about 22.5% higher than that of undoped Cu1.98Se. In addition, after 3 cycles of testing, the power factor of Cu1.98Se decreased by 57% at 800 K, and that of Cu1.965Pb0.015Se decreased by less than 30%.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bell LE (2008) Cooling, heating, generating power, and recovering waste heat with thermoelectric systems. Science 321:1457–1461

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Snyder GJ, Toberer ES (2008) Complex thermoelectric materials. Nat Mater 7:105–114

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Heremans JP, Jovovic V, Toberer ES, Saramat A, Kurosaki K, Charoenphakdee A, Yamanaka S, Snyder GJ (2008) Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency in PbTe by distortion of the electronic density of states. Science 321:554–557

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Heremans JP, Wiendlocha B, Chamoire AM (2012) Resonant levels in bulk thermoelectric semiconductors. Energy Environ Sci 5:5510–5530

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Biswas K, He JQ, Blum ID, Chun-Iwu TP, Hogan DN, Seidman VP, Dravid MG Kanatzidis (2012) High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures. Nature 489:414–418

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Liu HL, Shi X, Xu FF, Zhang LL, Zhang WQ, Chen LD, Li Q, Uher C, Day T, Snyder GJ (2012) Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics. Nat Mater 11:422–425

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Byeon D, Sobota R, Delime-Codrin K, Choi S, Hirata K, Adachi M, Kiyama M, Matsuura T, Yamamoto Y, Matsunami M, Takeuchi T (2019) Discovery of colossal Seebeck effect in metallic Cu2Se. Nat Commun 10:72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Glazov VM, Pashinkin AS, Fedorov VA (2000) Phase equilibria in the Cu–Se system. Inorg Mater 36:641–652

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Eikeland E, Blichfeld AB, Borup KA, Zhao KP, Overgaard J, Shi X, Chen LD, Iversen BB (2017) Crystal structure across the beta to alpha phase transition in thermoelectric Cu2–xSe. IUCrJ 4:476–485

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Olvera AA, Moroz NA, Sahoo P, Ren P, Bailey TP, Page AA, Uher C, Poudeu PFP (2017) Partial indium solubility induces chemical stability and colossal thermoelectric figure of merit in Cu2Se. Energy Environ Sci 10:1668–1676

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. White SL, Banerjee P, Jain PK (2017) Liquid-like cationic sub-lattice in copper selenide clusters. Nat Commun 8:14514

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Gahtori B, Bathula S, Tyagi K, Jayasimhadri M, Srivastava AK, Singh S, Budhani RC, Dhar A (2015) Giant enhancement in thermoelectric performance of copper selenide by incorporation of different nanoscale dimensional defect features. Nano Energy 13:36–46

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Peng P, Gong ZN, Liu FS, Huang MJ, Ao WQ, Li Y, Li JQ (2016) Structure and thermoelectric performance of beta-Cu2Se doped with Fe, Ni, Mn, In, Zn or Sm. Intermetallics 75:72–78

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Nunna R, Qiu PF, Yin MJ, Chen HY, Hanus R, Song QF, Zhang TS, Chou MY, Agne MT, He JQ, Snyder GJ, Shi X, Chen LD (2017) Ultrahigh thermoelectric performance in Cu2Se-based hybrid materials with highly dispersed molecular CNTs. Energy Environ Sci 10:1928–1935

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Brown DR, Day T, Borup KA, Christensen S, Iversen BB, Snyder GJ (2013) Phase transition enhanced thermoelectric figure-of-merit in copper chalcogenides. Apl Mater 1:052107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Dennler G, Chmielowski R, Jacob S, Capet F, Roussel P, Zastrow S, Nielsch K, Opahle I, Madsen GKH (2014) Are binary copper sulfides/selenides really new and promising thermoelectric materials? Adv Energy Mater 4:1301581

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Drymiotis F, Day TW, Brown DR, Heinz NA, Snyder GJ (2013) Enhanced thermoelectric performance in the very low thermal conductivity Ag2Se0.5Te0.5. Appl Phys Lett 103:143906

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Wei TR, Qin YT, Deng TT, Song QF, Jiang BB, Liu RH, Qiu PF, Shi X, Chen LD (2019) Copper chalcogenide thermoelectric materials. Sci China Mater 62:8–24

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Ohtani T, Tachibana Y, Ogura J, Miyake T, Okada Y, Yokota Y (1998) Physical properties and phase transitions of beta Cu2–xSe (0.20 <= x <= 0.25). J Alloy Compd 279:136–141

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Tyagi K, Gahtori B, Bathula S, Jayasimhadri M, Singh NK, Sharma S, Haranath D, Srivastava AK, Dhar A (2015) Enhanced thermoelectric performance of spark plasma sintered copper-deficient nanostructured copper selenide. J Phys Chem Solids 81:100–105

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Guo Y, Du XL, Wang YL, Yuan ZH (2017) Simultaneous enhanced performance of electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient in Bi2-xSnxS3 by solvothermal and microwave sintering. J Alloy Compd 717:177–182

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Du XL, Shi RN, Guo Y, Wang YL, Ma YC, Yuan ZH (2017) Enhanced thermoelectric properties of Pb1-xBixS prepared with hydrothermal synthesis and microwave sintering. Dalton Trans 46:2129–2136

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Jia F, Zhang S, Zhang X, Peng X, Zhang H, Xiang Y (2014) Sb-triggered beta-to-alpha transition: solvothermal synthesis of metastable alpha-Cu2Se. Chemistry 20:15941–15946

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Yang L, Chen Z-G, Han G, Hong M, Zou Y, Zou J (2015) High-performance thermoelectric Cu2Se nanoplates through nanostructure engineering. Nano Energy 16:367–374

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Zhao KP, Blichfeld AB, Chen HY, Song QF, Zhang TS, Zhu CX, Ren DD, Hanus R, Qiu PF, Iversen BB, Xu FF, Snyder GJ, Shi X, Chen LD (2017) Enhanced thermoelectric performance through tuning bonding energy in Cu2Se1-xSx Liquid-like Materials. Chem Mater 29:6367–6377

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by Tianjin research program of application foundation and advanced technology under award number 15JCYBJC18500.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xueli Du.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Li, H., Du, X., Cao, L. et al. Effects of Pb doping on the electrical transport performance of Cu1.98Se. J Mater Sci 55, 2905–2912 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-04242-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-04242-9

Navigation