High Electrical Conductivity Antimony Selenide Nanocrystals and Assemblies

Rutvik J. Mehta, C. Karthik, Wei Jiang, B. Singh, Yunfeng Shi, Richard W. Siegel, Theo Borca-Tasciuc, Ganpati Ramanath, Karthik Chinnathambi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

90 Scopus citations

Abstract

Antimony selenide is a promising thermoelectric material with a high Seebeck coefficient, but its figure of merit is limited by its low electrical conductivity. Here, we report a rapid and scalable (gram-a-minute) microwave synthesis of one-dimensional nanocrystals of sulfurized antimony selenide that exhibit ∼10 4 −10 10 times higher electrical conductivity than non-nanostructured bulk or thin film forms of this material. As the nanocrystal diameter increases, the nanowires transform into nanotubes through void formation and coalescence driven by axial rejection of sulfur incorporated into the nanowires from the surfactant used in our synthesis. Individual nanowires and nanotubes exhibit a charge carrier transport activation-energy of ∼<60 meV arising from surface sulfur donor states. Nanocrystal assemblies also show high electrical conductivity, making the nanocrystals attractive building blocks to realize nanostructured thin film and bulk forms of this material for thermoelectric device applications.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalNano Letters
Volume10
Issue number11
StatePublished - 6 Oct 2010

Keywords

  • Nanowires
  • antimony selenide
  • electrical conductivity
  • nanotubes
  • sulfur

EGS Disciplines

  • Materials Science and Engineering

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