Thermoelectric power generation is a promising candidate for automobile energy harvesting technologies because it is eco-friendly and durable owing to direct power conversion from automobile waste heat. Because Bi−Te systems are well-known thermoelectric materials, research on (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n homologous series can aid the development of efficient thermoelectric materials. However, to the best of our knowledge, (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n has been studied through experimental synthesis and measurements only. Therefore, we performed density functional theory calculations of nine members of (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n to investigate their structure, phase stability, and electronic band structures. From our calculations, although the total energies of all nine phases are slightly higher than their convex hulls, they can be metastable owing to their very small energy differences. The electric transport types of (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n do not change regardless of the exchange–correlation functionals, which cause tiny changes in the atomic structures, phase stabilities, and band structures. Additionally, only two phases (Bi8Te9, BiTe) became semimetallic or semiconducting depending on whether spin–orbit interactions were included in our calculations, and the electric transport types of the other phases were unchanged. As a result, it is expected that Bi2Te3, Bi8Te9, and BiTe are candidates for thermoelectric materials for automobile energy harvesting technologies because they are semiconducting.
Metal phosphides as potential thermoelectric materials
