Charting the lattice thermal conductivities of I-III-VI2 chalcopyrite semiconductors

Plata, J. J., Posligua, V., Marquez, A. M., Sanz, J. F. and Grau-Crespo, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8845-1719 (2022) Charting the lattice thermal conductivities of I-III-VI2 chalcopyrite semiconductors. Chemistry of Materials, 34 (6). pp. 2833-2841. ISSN 1520-5002 doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c00336

Abstract/Summary

Chalcopyrite-structured semiconductors have promising potential as low-cost thermoelectric materials, but their thermoelectric figures of merit must be increased for practical applications. Understanding their thermal properties is important to engineer their thermal conductivities and achieve better thermoelectric behavior. We present here a theoretical investigation of the lattice thermal conductivities of 20 chalcopyrite semiconductors with composition ABX2 (I-III-VI2), with A=Cu, Ag; B=Al, Ga, In, Tl; and X=S, Se, Te. To afford accurate predictions across this large family of compounds, we solve the Boltzmann transport equation with force constants derived from density functional theory calculations and machine-learning-based regression algorithms, reducing between one and two orders of magnitude the computational cost with respect to conventional approaches of the same accuracy. The results are in good agreement with available experimental data and allow us to rationalize the role of chemical composition, temperature and nanostructuring on the thermal conductivities across this important family of semiconductors.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/104434
Identification Number/DOI	10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c00336
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy > Department of Chemistry
Uncontrolled Keywords	thermal conductivity, computer simulations, machine learning, chalcopyrites
Publisher	American Chemical Society
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