Development of thermoelectric materials based on 143-Zintl phase

Various high-performance thermoelectric materials have been found in Zintl phase compounds. In particular, 122-Zintl phase has been intensively explored with successful findings of new thermoelectric materials that the dimensionless figure-of-merit (ZT) exceeds the value of 1. Recently, we found that Rb(Zn,Cu)₄As₃ show ZT = 0.53 at T = 797 K [1,2], demonstrating that 143-Zintl phase compounds can be a new class of high-performance thermoelectric materials.

To prove the potential of 143-Zintl phase, we further explored the performance of RbCd₄As₃. We synthesized samples by solid-state reaction. We optimized the synthesis condition to obtain single phase with appropriate carrier doping. The obtained maximum power factor was about 0.5mW/mK² at T = 500 K. Details will be discussed on the conference.