Thermoelectric Properties of <i>Pnma</i> and Rocksalt SnS and SnSe

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials convert waste heat to electricity and are part of the package of technologies needed to limit global warming. The tin chalcogenides SnS and SnSe are promising candidate thermoelectrics, with orthorhombic SnSe showing some of the highest figures of merit ZT reported to date. As for other Group IV chalcogenides, SnS and SnSe can form rocksalt phases under certain conditions, but the thermoelectric properties of these phases are largely unexplored. We have applied a fully ab initio modelling protocol to compare the ZT of the orthorhombic and rocksalt phases of SnS and SnSe. Electronic structures from hybrid density-functional theory were used to calculate the three electrical transport properties, including approximate models for the electron relaxation times, and lattice dynamics calculations were performed to model the phonon spectra and lattice thermal conductivities. We obtained good estimates of the ZT of the well-studied orthorhombic phases. The rocksalt phases were predicted to show larger electrical conductivities and similar Seebeck coefficients to the orthorhombic phases, resulting in higher thermoelectric power factors, but these were offset by larger thermal conductivities. These results therefore motivate further investigation of the recently discovered “π-cubic” phases of SnS and SnSe, which are based on distorted rocksalt supercells, to establish their thermoelectric performance.

Keywords

• thermoelectrics
• tin chalcogenides
• materials modelling
• density-functional theory
• electronic structure
• electrical transport properties