Enhanced thermal stability of Bi2Te3-based alloys via interface engineering with atomic layer deposition

Abstract

The ease of Te sublimation from Bi2Te3-based alloys significantly deteriorates thermoelectric and mechanical properties via the formation of voids. We propose a novel strategy based on atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve the thermal stability of Bi2Te3-based alloys via the encapsulation of grains with a ZnO layer. Only a few cycles of ZnO ALD over the Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 powders resulted in significant suppression of the generation of pores in Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 extrudates and increased the density even after post-annealing at 500 °C. This is attributed to the suppression of Te sublimation from the extrudates. The ALD coating also enhanced grain refinement in Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 extrudates. Consequently, their mechanical properties were significantly improved by the encapsulation approach. Furthermore, the ALD approach yields a substantial improvement in the figure-of-merit after the post-annealing. Therefore, we believe the proposed approach using ALD will be useful for enhancing the mechanical properties of Bi2Te3-based alloys without sacrificing thermoelectric performance.