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Heavy Element Doping For Enhancing Thermoelectric Properties Of Nanostructured Zinc Oxide, Priyanka Jood, Rutvik J. Mehta, Yanliang Zhang, Theo Borca-Tasciuc, Shi Xue Dou, David J. Singh, Ganpati Ramanath

Shi Xue Dou

ZnO is a high melting point, high charge carrier mobility semiconductor with potential as a thermoelectric material, but its high thermal conductivity κ is the limiting factor for increasing the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. Here, we demonstrate that doping ZnO with heavy elements can significantly enhance ZT. Indium doping leads to ultralow κ 3 W m−1 K−1 and a high power factor α2σ 1.230 × 10−3 W m−1 K−2, yielding ZT1000K 0.45 that is 80% higher than non-nanostructured In–Zn–O alloys. Although Bi doping also yields a high Seebeck coefficient of α300K 500 μV K−1, Bi segregation, grain growth and …