Thermoelectric Properties of Bromine Filled CoSb3 Skutterudite

Brenden R. Ortiz, Caitlin M. Crawford, Robert W. McKinney, Philip A. Parilla, Eric S. Toberer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Historically, the improved thermoelectric performance of skutterudite compounds has largely been driven by the incorporation of electropositive donors on interstitial sites. These "rattlers" serve to optimize both electronic and thermal properties by tuning the carrier concentration and scattering phonons. In this work, we show that interstitial bromine can be incorporated into CoSb3 and assess the impact on electronic and thermal transport. In contrast to prior high pressure syntheses with iodine, interstitial bromine incorporation is achieved at ambient pressure. Transport properties are stable up to at least 375 °C. Bromine serves as an electronegative acceptor and can induce degenerate (>5 × 1019 cm-3) hole densities. In contrast to other p-type skutterudite compositions, bromine preserves the intrinsically high hole mobility of CoSb3 while significantly reducing the lattice thermal conductivity. The development of a stable p-type dopant for the interstitial filler site enables the development of skutterudites with both donor and acceptor interstitials to maximize phonon scattering while maintaining the high mobility of CoSb3.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)8444-8450
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Materials Chemistry A
Volume4
Issue number21
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-66696

Keywords

  • bromine
  • skutterudite
  • thermoelectric properties

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