Unconventional Doping Effect Leads to Ultrahigh Average Thermoelectric Power Factor in Cu₃ SbSe₄ -Based Composites

Thermoelectric materials are typically highly degenerate semiconductors, which require high carrier concentration. However, the efficiency of conventional doping by replacing host atoms with alien ones is restricted by solubility limit, and, more unfavorably, such a doping method is likely to cause strong charge-carrier scattering at ambient temperature, leading to deteriorated electrical performance. Here, an unconventional doping strategy is proposed, where a small trace of alien atoms is used to stabilize cation vacancies in Cu₃ SbSe₄ by compositing with CuAlSe₂ , in which the cation vacancies rather than the alien atoms provide a high density of holes. Consequently, the hole concentration enlarges by six times but the carrier mobility is well maintained. As a result, a record-high average power factor of 19 µW cm^-1 K^-2 in the temperature range of 300-723 K is attained. Finally, with further reduced lattice thermal conductivity, a peak zT value of 1.4 and a record-high average zT value of 0.72 are achieved within the diamond-like compounds. This new doping strategy not only can be applied for boosting the average power factor for thermoelectrics, but more generally can be used to maintain carrier mobility for a variety of semiconductors that need high carrier concentration.