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Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics

Huili Liu, Xun Shi, Fangfang Xu, Linlin Zhang, Wenqing Zhang, Lidong Chen, Qiang Li, Ctirad Uher, Tristan Day & G. Jeffrey Snyder Nature Materials 11, 422425 (2012) Received 10 October 2011 doi:10.1038/nmat3273 Published online 11 March 2012

Accepted 08 February 2012

Advanced thermoelectric technology offers a potential for converting waste industrial heat into useful electricity, and an emission-free method for solid state cooling
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. Worldwide efforts to find materials with thermoelectric figure of merit, zT

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values significantly above unity, are frequently focused on crystalline semiconductors with low thermal conductivity . Here we report on Cu2xSe, which reaches a zT of 1.5 at 1,000K, among the highest values for any bulk materials. Whereas the Se Print atoms in Cu 2xSe form a rigid face-centred cubic lattice, providing a crystalline pathway for semiconducting electrons (or more precisely holes), the copper ions are highly disordered around the Se sublattice and are superionic with liquid-like mobility. This extraordinary liquid-like behaviour of copper ions around a crystalline sublattice of Se in Cu2xSe results in an intrinsically very low lattice thermal conductivity which enables high zT in this otherwise simple semiconductor. This unusual combination of properties leads to an ideal thermoelectric material. The results indicate a new strategy and direction for high-efficiency thermoelectric materials by exploring systems where there exists a crystalline sublattice for electronic conduction surrounded by liquid-like ions. Subject terms: Materials for energy Electronic materials

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Author information
Affiliations CAS Key Laboratory of Energy-conversion Materials, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China Huili Liu, Xun Shi & Lidong Chen Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China Huili Liu State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China Xun Shi, Fangfang Xu, Linlin Zhang & Wenqing Zhang Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA Qiang Li

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Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectrics : Nature Materials : Nature Publis...

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Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA Ctirad Uher Department of Materials Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA Tristan Day & G. Jeffrey Snyder Contributions H.L. and X.S. prepared the samples and measured the thermoelectric properties. F.X., W.Z., L.C., Q.L., G.J.S. and C.U. provided discussion on the experimental data. F.X. and L.Z. performed TEM measurements and analysis. T.D. and G.J.S. performed room-temperature speed of sound measurements. H.L., X.S., L.C., Q.L., C.U. and G.J.S. wrote and edited the manuscript. Competing financial interests The authors declare no competing financial interests. Corresponding authors Correspondence to: Xun Shi or Lidong Chen

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