High thermoelectric performance of fullerene doped Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 alloys

Abstract In this paper, we report our recent experimental findings on the enhancement of thermoelectric performance of C 60 doped Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 bulk alloys. Incorporation of a small amount of C 60 significantly reduces the crystalline particle size and leads to closely packed nanostructure, whilst slightly improve the electric conductivity in the measured temperature range. In addition, a minimum thermal conductivity of 0.4 W/(mK) at 358 K was observed, which is identified to be caused by the strong lattice phonon scattering at grain boundaries, yielding a high figure-of-merit ZT  = 1.47 ± 0.07 at 358 K. Our results demonstrate that the materials can be used for the development of advanced thermoelectrics.