Simultaneous blocking of minority carrier and high energy phonon in p-type skutterudites

The spatial uneven distribution of cations, the cation fluctuation, leads to a band edge fluctuation with small valence-band offsets, multi-scale strain field fluctuation and formation of nanostructures, resulting in the blocking of minority carrier and high energy phonon. The boosted calculated efficiency of 13.3% reachs the highest record in p-type lead-free thermoelectric materials, showing that the cation fluctuation is an efficient new thought to realize high thermoelectric performance.309