Lattice plainification advances highly effective SnSe crystalline thermoelectrics

Thermoelectric technology has been widely used for key areas, including waste-heat recovery and solid-state cooling. We discovered tin selenide (SnSe) crystals with potential power generation and Peltier cooling performance. The extensive off-stoichiometric defects have a larger impact on the transport properties of SnSe, which motivated us to develop a lattice plainification strategy for defects engineering. We demonstrated that Cu can fill Sn vacancies to weaken defects scattering and boost carrier mobility, facilitating a power factor exceeding ~100 microwatts per centimeter per square kelvin and a dimensionless figure of merit (ZT) of ~1.5 at 300 kelvin, with an average ZT of ~2.2 at 300 to 773 kelvin. We further realized a single-leg efficiency of ~12.2% under a temperature difference (DT) of ~300 kelvin and a seven-pair Peltier cooling DT_max of ~61.2 kelvin at ambient temperature. Our observations are important for practical applications of SnSe crystals in power generation as well as electronic cooling.