Enhanced thermoelectric performance of PbSe co-doped with Ag and Sb

Abstract Nanostructured thermoelectric materials PbSe co-doped with Ag and Sb (with the composition of (AgSb) x Pb 1 − 2 x Se) were prepared by high pressure method. It was found that appropriate doping with Ag and Sb could reduce both the electrical resistivity and the phonon thermal conductivity simultaneously, consequently greatly enhancing the thermoelectric performance. An enhanced figure-of-merit of 1.03 has been achieved at 600 K for the sample with x  = 0.03, which is about five times higher than that of undoped PbSe. The improved thermoelectric performance in this study may be due to the effect of high pressure and the low phonon thermal conductivity resulting from Ag and Sb as source of dopants.