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Journal Article
Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics
2012
Overview
A common route to obtain efficient thermoelectrics is to optimize the ratio between electrical and thermal conductivity. Typically, materials with a complex, glass-like phonon structure and therefore a very low thermal conductivity are studied. Now, a route showing that solid ions in a liquid-like state can have a low enough thermal conductivity to compete with the best existing thermoelectrics is proposed.
Advanced thermoelectric technology offers a potential for converting waste industrial heat into useful electricity, and an emission-free method for solid state cooling
1
,
2
. Worldwide efforts to find materials with thermoelectric figure of merit,
zT
values significantly above unity, are frequently focused on crystalline semiconductors with low thermal conductivity
2
. Here we report on Cu
2−
x
Se, which reaches a
zT
of 1.5 at 1,000 K, among the highest values for any bulk materials. Whereas the Se atoms in Cu
2−
x
Se form a rigid face-centred cubic lattice, providing a crystalline pathway for semiconducting electrons (or more precisely holes), the copper ions are highly disordered around the Se sublattice and are superionic with liquid-like mobility. This extraordinary ‘liquid-like’ behaviour of copper ions around a crystalline sublattice of Se in Cu
2−
x
Se results in an intrinsically very low lattice thermal conductivity which enables high
zT
in this otherwise simple semiconductor. This unusual combination of properties leads to an ideal thermoelectric material. The results indicate a new strategy and direction for high-efficiency thermoelectric materials by exploring systems where there exists a crystalline sublattice for electronic conduction surrounded by liquid-like ions.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
