The effect of Te doping on the electronic structure and thermoelectric properties of SnSe

SnSe1−xTex (x=0, 0.0625) bulk materials were fabricated by melting Sn, Se and Te powders and then hot pressing them at various temperatures. The phase compositions of the materials were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the crystal lattice parameters were refined by the Rietveld method performed with DBWS. XRD analysis revealed that the grains in the materials preferentially grew along the (l 0 0) directions. The structural behavior of SnSe1−xTex (x=0, 0.0625) was calculated using CASTEP package provided by Materials Studio. We found that the band gap of SnSe reduced from 0.643 to 0.608 eV after Te doping. The calculated results were in good agreement with experimental results. The electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient of the as-prepared materials were measured from room temperature to 673 K. The maximum power factor of SnSe is ∼0.7 μW cm−1K−2 at 673 K.