High thermoelectric performance is generally achieved through either electronic structure modulations or phonon scattering enhancements, which often counteract each other. A leap in performance requires innovative strategies that simultaneously optimize electronic and phonon transports. We demonstrate high thermoelectric performance with a near room-temperature figure of merit, ZT ~ 1.5, and a maximum ZT ~ 2.6 at 573 kelvin, by optimizing atomic disorder in cadmium-doped polycrystalline silver antimony telluride (AgSbTe2). Cadmium doping in AgSbTe2 enhances cationic ordering, which simultaneously improves electronic properties by tuning disorder-induced localization of electronic states and reduces lattice thermal conductivity through spontaneous formation of nanoscale (~2 to 4 nanometers) superstructures and coupling of soft vibrations localized within ~1 nanometer around cadmium sites with local strain modulation. The strategy is applicable to most other thermoelectric materials that exhibit inherent atomic disorder.
Precipitation of silver particles with controlled morphologies from aqueous solutions
