Fast Fabrication of High‐Performance CoSb₃‐Based Thermoelectric Skutterudites via One‐Step Yb‐Promoted Peritectic Solidification

Abstract

As a most promising mid‐temperature thermoelectric material, CoSb3‐based bulk material exhibits an applicable figure‐of‐merit (ZT) of more than one. However, their fabrication is historically time‐consuming due to the long‐time solid‐state phase transitions from CoSb2 to CoSb3. To overcome this challenge, here, a fast one‐step process is developed to fabricate n‐type Yb‐doped CoSb3 with stable ZT of 1.12 at 765 K in <5 h. Experiments confirm Yb promotes peritectic reactions of CoSb + Liquid → CoSb2 and CoSb2 + Liquid → CoSb3, optimizes power factor, and suppresses thermal conductivity. Moreover, the dense grains, induced by the one‐step crystallization, result in outstanding mechanical properties with a Young's modulus of 171.4 GPa and a hardness of 8.8 GPa in the Yb‐doped CoSb3. This study indicates that the fast one‐step fabrication route can effectively promote the practical applications of CoSb3‐based thermoelectrics and provide guidance for thermoelectric fabrication via rational phase design.

High-performance flexible p-type Ce-filled Fe3CoSb12 skutterudite thin film for medium-to-high-temperature applications

“…Compounds with the skutterudite structures have garnered widespread concern for their excellent thermal stability, appropriate S , and enhanced σ 19 – 23 , achieving preliminary success in the preparation of thermoelectric thin-film materials for higher-temperature applications 24 . In the reported skutterudite thin films, most are currently rigid films due to the long-standing challenge of compatibility between skutterudite and flexible organic substrates.…”

Reduced thermal conductivity and enhanced TE performance in CrSb2 via Fe-Bi co-substitution

“…A series of high-performing TE materials have been investigated i.e. Bi 2 Te 3 -based-materials [10][11][12][13], PbTe-based compounds [14][15][16][17][18], skutterudites [19][20][21][22][23], half-Heusler alloys [24][25][26][27][28][29], Zintl compounds [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and so on. For room temperature applications, (Bi,Sb) 2 (Te,Se) 3 -based materials are recognized as the best system for decades due to their high ZT value which varied between 1 and 2 [39].…”