AgI alloying in SnTe boosts the thermoelectric performance via simultaneous valence band convergence and carrier concentration optimization

Significant decrease in hole concentration and reduction of the energy separation between light and heavy hole valence bands resulted in a maximum thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, of ~1.05 at 860 K in high quality crystalline ingot of p-type Sn0.95Ag0.05Te0.95I0.05.164