α-CsCu₅Se₃: Discovery of a Low-Cost Bulk Selenide with High Thermoelectric Performance

The discovery of low-cost, less toxic, and earth-abundant thermoelectric materials is a great challenge. Herein, with the aid of a unique and safe boron-chalcogen method, we discover the new tetragonal α-CsCu₅Se₃, featuring a previously unrecognized structure in the ternary family of Cs/Cu/Se. The structure is constructed by a Chinese-knot-like Cu₈Se₈ building unit that is further linked into a 3D network. α-CsCu₅Se₃ exhibits thermal stability that is superior to that of the recently established thermoelectric materials Cu_2-Se and CsAg₅Te₃ suffering unfavorable phase transitions. Distinct from the liquidlike migration in Cu_2-Se, α-CsCu₅Se₃ obeys a typical crystalline solid thermal transport behavior dominated by Umklapp scattering. In compariosn to the isostructural CsAg₅Te₃, α-CsCu₅Se₃ shows a 30% volume decrease that leads to stronger orbital overlapping that markedly decreases the band effective mass (m*). With a smaller m* and a softer Cu-Se bond, α-CsCu₅Se₃ eventually realizes a 200% increase in the power factor (8.17 μW/(cm K²), the highest among the copper-rich alkali-metal chalcogenides) and a figure of merit (ZT) of 1.03 at 980 K. Further, the doping in α-Cs(Cu_0.96Sb_0.04)₅Se₃ boosts the lattice anharmonicity by the lone pairs that, via intensifying the Umklapp scattering and slowing the phonon velocity, ensures a low lattice thermal conductivity (0.40 W/(m K)), and finally leads to a ZT_max value of 1.30 at 980 K. Our discovery represents a step toward low-cost, earth-abundant, and high-performance chalcogenide materials that will shed useful light on future exploration in the related fields.