Electrical and thermal transport in thermoelectric, skutterudites, CoSb3

Abstract

Thermoelectric energy harvesting has come into the spotlight in recent years to achieve standards amongst other type of green technology in obtaining sustainable energy. In-filled and Te-doped Co4Sb12 skutterudites were produced via solid-state synthesis and their thermoelectric properties were investigated from 300K to 800K. The parent compound Co4Sb12 is p-type, whereas In-filled and Te-doped compounds, InzCo4Sb12-xTex showed n-type conduction resulted from indium and tellurium which are natural electron donors. InzCo4Sb12-xTex compounds show high electrical conductivity due to increase in the carrier concentration and low thermal conductivity due to predominantly increased phonon scattering due to filling of voids of the unit cell. The reduction in thermal conductivity and enhancement in electrical conductivity helped to establish a higher zT= S2σ/κ value for InzCo4Sb12-xTex.