Improvement of thermoelectric properties of Cu3SbSe4 compound by In doping

• In is experimentally found to be a promising and efficient hole dopant in Cu3SbSe4.
• We also prove that In occupies the site of Sb rather than that of Cu theoretically.
• Doping In can effectively increase the power factor at elevated temperature and decrease the thermal conductivity.
• A maximum ZT value of 0.50 (at 648K) is obtained for the 0.3% In doped sample.

In doped Cu3Sb1-xInxSe4 (x = 0, 0.002, 0.003 and 0.004) compounds have been fabricated via a combined process of melting-pulverization-hot pressing. Effect of In doping on their thermoelectric properties have been explored and it reveals that In occupies the site of Sb and plays a role of acceptor dopant. With the increase of In doping content, the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient decrease, and the power factor is obviously improved at elevated temperature compared with un-doped Cu3SbSe4. Meanwhile, the thermal conductivity is also reduced due to the extra phonon scattering by point defects introduced by In doping. As a consequence, a maximum ZT value of 0.50 (at 648 K) is obtained for the doped sample (x = 0.003), which is about 47% higher than that of the un-doped Cu3SbSe4.

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