A Thermoelectric Performance Study of Layered Bi 2 TeI Weak Topological Insulator Materials

Kaihua Tu, Ping Wei, Hongyu Zhou, Xin Mu, Wanting Zhu, Xiaolei Nie and Wenyu Zhao
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Kaihua Tu: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Ping Wei: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Hongyu Zhou: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Xin Mu: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Wanting Zhu: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Xiaolei Nie: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Wenyu Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Topological insulators have been considered as promising thermoelectric materials because of their high electrical transport properties and low thermal conductivity. In this work, the crystal structure, chemical composition, and thermoelectric transport properties of a weak topological insulator, Bi 2 TeI, were studied. Bi 2 TeI possesses the lowest lattice thermal conductivity compared with the analogously layered compounds Bi 2 Te 3 and BiTeI. Cu and Zn were used as dopants with the aim of optimizing the thermoelectric performance. It was found that doping Bi 2 TeI with Cu led to decreased carrier concentration and power factor while doping with Zn resulted in increased carrier concentration and improved power factor. Accompanied with reduced lattice thermal conductivity, Zn-doped samples showed a largely improved dimensionless figure of merit, ZT . The largest ZT was 0.077 for Zn 0.01 Bi 2 TeI, increased by 70% as compared with the undoped Bi 2 TeI.

Keywords: thermoelectric performance; weak topological insulator; electrical transport; thermal conductivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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