The highly anisotropic material CsBi
4Te
6 was prepared by the reaction of Cs/Bi
2Te
3 around 600
C. The compound crystallizes in the monoclinic space group
C2/
m with
a = 51.9205(8) Å,
b = 4.
4025(1)Å,
c = 14.5118(3) Å,
= 101.480(1)
,
V = 3250.75(11) Å
3, and
Z = 8. The final
R values are
R1 = 0.0585and w
R2 = 0.1127 for all data. The compound has a 2-D structure composed of NaCl-type [Bi
4Te
6] anioniclayers and Cs
+ ions residing between the layers. The [Bi
4Te
6] layers are interconnected by Bi-Bi bonds ata distance of 3.2383(10) Å. This material is a narrow gap semiconductor. Optimization studies on thethermoelectric properties with a variety of doping agents show that the electrical properties of CsBi
4Te
6can be tuned to yield an optimized thermoelectric material which is promising for low-temperatureapplications. SbI
3 doping resulted in p-type behavior and a maximum power factor of 51.5
W/cm·K
2 at184 K and the corresponding ZT of 0.82 at 225 K. The highest power factor of 59.8
W/cm·K
2 at 151 Kwas obtained from 0.06% Sb-doped material. We report here the synthesis, physicochemical properties,doping characteristics, charge-transport properties, and thermal conductivity. Also presented are studieson n-type CsBi
4Te
6 and comparisons to those of p-type.