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Giant Pressure-Induced Enhancement of Seebeck Coefficient and Thermoelectric Efficiency in SnTe
Jason Baker1, Ravhi Kumar1, Changyong Park2
1HiPSEC and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA.
Abstract:
The thermoelectric properties of polycrystalline SnTe have been measured up to 4.5 GPa at 330 K. SnTe shows an enormous enhancement in Seebeck coefficient, greater than 200 % after 3 GPa, which correlates to a known pressure-induced structural phase transition that is observed through simultaneous in situ X-ray diffraction measurement. Electrical resistance and relative changes to the thermal conductivity were also measured, enabling the determination of relative changes in the dimensionless figure of merit (ZT), which increases dramatically after 3 GPa, reaching 350 % of the lowest pressure ZT value. The results demonstrate a fundamental relationship between structure and thermoelectric behaviours and suggest that pressure is an effective tool to control them.
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