Effect of Sn-substitution on Thermoelectric Properties of Copper-based Sulfide, Famatinite Cu3SbS4

TL;DR

This study investigates how Sn-substitution affects the electrical and thermal transport properties of Cu3SbS4, a copper-based sulfide, revealing improvements in thermoelectric performance at elevated temperatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of Sn-doping on carrier concentration, effective mass, and thermoelectric efficiency of Cu3SbS4, providing insights into optimizing earth-abundant thermoelectric materials.

Findings

Carrier concentration controlled from 4×10^18 to 8×10^20 cm^-3

Density-of-states effective mass ~3.0 me

Figure of merit reaches 0.1 at 573 K

Abstract

Copper-based sulfide is an attractive material for Earth-abundant thermoelectrics. In this study, we demonstrate the effect of Sn-substitution on the electrical and thermal transport properties of fematinite Cu3SbS4 from 300 to 573 K. The carrier concentration is controlled in the range from 4 \times 10^18 to 8 \times 10^20 cm^-3 by Sn-substitution. The density-of-states effective mass is found to be ~3.0 me, assuming the single parabolic band model. The direct-type optical band gap is ~0.9 eV, which is consistent with the density functional theory calculation. The dimensionless figure of merit reaches 0.1 for Sn-doped samples at 573 K.