文摘
We report the thermoelectric properties of undoped hot-pressed In4Se3−x (x = 0.05). Stoichiometric imbalance due to selenium deficiency in In4Se3 was found to create a secondary phase of elemental indium in the host material. Heat treatment drove grain growth and increased the indium solubility in In4Se3. Indium-rich domains at grain surfaces/boundaries in untreated samples were found to redistribute inside the grains and their junctions after heat treatment. Due to enhanced phonon scattering by secondary phase of indium, very low values of thermal conductivity were observed for all samples, leading to a maximum thermoelectric figure of merit (zT) of 1.13 at 723 K along the hot-pressing direction for the heat-treated sample.