No Arabic abstract
Solid-state thermoelectric cooling is expected to be widely used in various cryogenic applications such as local cooling of superconducting devices. At present, however, thermoelectric cooling using p- and n-type Bi2Te3-based materials has been put to practical use only at room temperature. Recently, M4SiTe4 (M = Ta, Nb) has been found to show excellent n-type thermoelectric properties down to 50 K. This paper reports on the synthesis of high-performance p-type M4SiTe4 by Ti doping, which can be combined with n-type M4SiTe4 in a cooling device at low temperatures. The thermoelectric power factor of p-type M4SiTe4 reaches a maximum value of approximately 60 uW cm-1 K-2 at 210 K and exceeds the practical level in a wide temperature range of 130-270 K. A finite temperature drop by Peltier cooling was also achieved in a cooling device made of p- and n-type Ta4SiTe4 whisker crystals. These results clearly indicate that M4SiTe4 is promising to realize a practical thermoelectric cooler for use at low temperatures, which are not covered by Bi2Te3-based materials.
The growth and elementary properties of p-type Bi2Se3 single crystals are reported. Based on a hypothesis about the defect chemistry of Bi2Se3, the p-type behavior has been induced through low level substitutions (1 percent or less) of Ca for Bi. Scanning tunneling microscopy is employed to image the defects and establish their charge. Tunneling and angle resolved photoemission spectra show that the Fermi level has been lowered into the valence band by about 400 meV in Bi1.98Ca0.02Se3 relative to the n-type material. p-type single crystals with ab plane Seebeck coefficients of +180 microVK-1 at room temperature are reported. These crystals show a giant anomalous peak in the Seebeck coefficient at low temperatures, reaching +120 microVK-1 at 7 K, giving them a high thermoelectric power factor at low temperatures. In addition to its interesting thermoelectric properties, p-type Bi2Se3 is of substantial interest for studies of technologies and phenomena proposed for topological insulators.
High mobility phonon-glass semimetal $CuAgSe$ has shown promise in recent years as a potential low-temperature thermoelectric material. It exhibits reasonably strong thermoelectric performance as well as an extremely high carrier mobility, both of which are enhanced when the material is doped with Ni at the Cu sites. The exact mechanism by which these enhancements result; however, is unclear. In order to further investigate the effects of chemical substitution on the materials thermoelectric properties, we have prepared and performed various measurements on $CuAgSe$ samples doped with Co and Cr according to the following compositional formulas: $Cu_{1-x}Co_{x}AgSe$ $(x=0.02, 0.05, 0.10)$ and $Cu_{1-x}Cr_{x}AgSe$ $(x=0.02, 0.05)$. Measurements of temperature and magnetic field dependent thermal conductivity, electrical resistivity, and Seebeck coefficient will be discussed. Our results reveal a remarkable sensitivity of $CuAgSe$s thermoelectric properties to chemical doping in general as well as a particular sensitivity to specific dopants. This demonstrated tunability of $CuAgSe$s various properties furthers the case that high mobility phonon glass-semimetals are strong candidates for potential low temperature thermoelectric applications.
High-throughput calculations are a very promising tool for screening a large number of compounds in order to discover new useful materials. Ternary intermetallic are thus investigated in the present work to find new compounds potentially interesting for thermoelectric applications. The screening of the stable non-metallic compounds required for such applications is obtained by calculating their electronic structure by DFT methods. In a first part, the study of the density of states at the Fermi level of well-known chemical elements and binary compounds allows to empirically optimize the selection criteria between metals and non-metals. In a second part, the TiNiSi structure-type is used as a case-study through the investigation of 570 possible compositions. This screening method leads to the selection of 12 possible semiconductors. For these selected compounds, their Seebeck coefficient and their lattice thermal conductivity are calculated in order to identify the most interesting one. TiNiSi, TaNiP or HfCoP could thus be compounds worth an experimental investigation.
Two-dimensional (2D) MoS$_2$ has been intensively investigated for its use in the fields of microelectronics, nanoelectronics, and optoelectronics. However, intrinsic 2D MoS$_2$ is usually used as the n-type semiconductor due to the unintentional sulphur vacancies and surface gas adsorption.The synthesis and characterization of 2D MoS$_2$ semiconductor of p-type are crucial for the development of relevant p-n junction devices, as well as the practical applications of 2D MoS$_2$ in the next-generation CMOS integrated circuit. Here, we synthesize high-quality, wafer-scale, 2D p-type MoS$_2$ (Mo$_{1-x}$Nb$_x$S$_2$) with various niobium (Nb) mole fractions from 0 to 7.6% by a creative two-step method. The dielectric functions of 2D Mo1-xNbxS2 are accurately determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry. We find that the increasing fraction of Nb dopant in 2D MoS$_2$ can modulate and promote the combination of A and B exciton peaks of 2D MoS$_2$. The direct causes of this impurity-tunable combination are interpreted as the joint influence of decreasing peak A and broadening peak B. We explain the broadening peak B as the multiple transitions from the impurity-induced valance bands to the conductive band minimum at K point of Brillouin zone by comparing and analyzing the simulated electronic structure of intrinsic and 2D Nb-doped MoS$_2$. A p-type FET based on the 2D Nb-doped MoS$_2$ was fabricated for characterization, and its working performance is expected to be adjustable as a function of concentration of Nb dopant according to our theoretical research. Our study is informative for comprehending optical and electronic properties of extrinsic 2D transitional metal dichalcogenides, which is important and imperative for the development and optimization of corresponding photonics and optoelectronics devices.
The helimagnets Cr$_{1/3}M$S$_2$ ($M$ = Nb or Ta) have attracted renewed attention due to the discovery of a chiral soltion lattice (CSL) stabilized in Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$ in an applied magnetic field, but reports of unusual low-temperature transport and magnetic properties in this system lack a unifying explanation. Here we present electronic structure calculations demonstrating that Cr$_{1/3}M$S$_2$ ($M$ = Nb or Ta) are half-metals whose low-temperature electronic and magnetic behavior can be explained by the presence of a gap-like feature (width in range 40-100 meV) in the density of states of one spin channel. Our magnetometry measurements confirm the existence of this gap. Dynamic spin fluctuations driven by excitations across this gap are seen over a wide range of frequencies (0.1 Hz to MHz) with AC susceptibility and muon-spin relaxation ($mu^+$SR) measurements. We show further how effects due to the CSL in Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$, as detected with $mu^+$SR, dominate over the gap-driven magnetism when the CSL is stabilized as the majority phase.