Energy band and charge-carrier engineering in skutterudite thermoelectric materials  

作　　者：Zhiyuan Liu Ting Yang Yonggui Wang Ailin Xia Lianbo Ma 刘志愿;杨婷;王永贵;夏爱林;马连波(Key Laboratory of Green Fabrication and Surface Technology of Advanced Metal Materials(Ministry of Education),Anhui University of Technology,Maanshan 243002,China;School of Materials Science and Engineering,Anhui University of Technology,Maanshan 243002,China)

机构地区：[1]Key Laboratory of Green Fabrication and Surface Technology of Advanced Metal Materials(Ministry of Education),Anhui University of Technology,Maanshan 243002,China [2]School of Materials Science and Engineering,Anhui University of Technology,Maanshan 243002,China

出　　处：《Chinese Physics B》2022年第10期208-219,共12页中国物理B（英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51872006);the Excellent Youth Project of Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province of China (Grant No. 2208085Y17)。

摘　　要：The binary CoSb_(3) skutterudite thermoelectric material has high thermal conductivity due to the covalent bond between Co and Sb, and the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, is very low. The thermal conductivity of CoSb_(3) materials can be significantly reduced through phonon engineering, such as low-dimensional structure, the introduction of nano second phases,nanointerfaces or nanopores, which greatly improves their ZT values. The phonon engineering can optimize significantly the thermal transport properties of CoSb_(3)-based materials. However, the improvement of the electronic transport properties is not obvious, or even worse. Energy band and charge-carrier engineering can significantly improve the electronic transport properties of CoSb_(3)-based materials while optimizing the thermal transport properties. Therefore, the decoupling of thermal and electronic transport properties of CoSb_(3)-based materials can be realized by energy band and charge-carrier engineering. This review summarizes some methods of optimizing synergistically the electronic and thermal transport properties of CoSb_(3) materials through the energy band and charge-carrier engineering strategies. Energy band engineering strategies include band convergence or resonant energy levels caused by doping/filling. The charge-carrier engineering strategy includes the optimization of carrier concentration and mobility caused by doping/filling, forming modulation doped structures or introducing nano second phase. These strategies are effective means to improve performance of thermoelectric materials and provide new research ideas of development of high-efficiency thermoelectric materials.

关 键 词：CoSb_(3)-based skutterudite materials energy band engineering charge-carrier engineering thermoelectric properties 

分 类 号：O48[理学—固体物理]