Influence of Sintering Temperature on Thermoelectric Properties of n-type Bi2-xSbxTe3 Compounds

Abstract

n-type (Bi,Sb)2Te3 emerges as a viable alternative to conventional n-type Bi2(Te,Se)3, demonstrating superior power generation capabilities when coupled with p-type (Bi,Sb)2Te3 in commercial thermoelectric devices. Despite the importance of controlling the donor-like effect in n-type (Bi,Sb)2Te3 for optimization of thermoelectric performance, there have been no relevant studies so far. This study focuses on investigating the effect of sintering temperature on the thermoelectric properties of n-type (Bi,Sb)2Te3. Increasing the sintering temperature promotes the recovery effect and leads to a reduction in carrier concentration and thereby optimized power factor (2.66 mW m–1 K–2 at 298 K). Furthermore, the zT value at room temperature increased by 63%, and the highest zT value achieved is 0.52 at 423 K for the sample sintered at 793 K.