LAUSR

Abstract SnTe alloy is a kind of potential medium-temperature thermoelectric material to replace toxic PbTe. In this work, we demonstrate that both trivalent Ce doping and univalent Li doping can optimize the thermoelectric properties of SnTe by controlling carrier concentration in two directions, respectively. In addition, the dispersed high-density nano-precipitates caused by Li doping are helpful to enhance the phonon scattering and then reduce the lattice thermal conductivity. Moreover, co-doping of Ce and Li promotes the peak ZT and average ZT of SnTe simultaneously. The ZT value reaches approximately1 at 873 K and the ZTave reaches approximately 0.39 from 300 K to 873 K for Sn0.98Ce0.02Te-(Li2Te)0.01.