Abstract
A maximal thermoelectric figure-of-merit ZT for p-type Ag(Sb 1-x In x )Te 2 samples with x = 0.07 is 1.35 at 650 K, yielding an enhancement of greater than 40% compared with that of an undoped AgSbTe 2 compound at the same temperature. This ZT enhancement can be primarily attributed to both the greatly enhanced power factor resulting from an increase in Seebeck coefficient because of the increase in the effective mass and the substantial decrease in thermal conductivity which could be ascribed to the enhancement of the phonon scattering mechanism by dopants with different atomic weights. These results indicate that doping with In is effective for enhancing the thermoelectric performance of the p-type AgSbTe 2 compound. © 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry.