Raman Spectroscopy Study of Phonon Liquid Electron Crystal in Copper Deficient Superionic Thermoelectric Cu2–xTe

Superionic Cu2-xTe (CT) is an interesting and emerging p-type thermoelectric (TE) material due to the existence of various polymorphic phases and crystal structures, which undergo several structural phase transitions. On the basis of the stoichiometry of the CT compounds, the structure parameters, the carrier concentration (np), and the thermal conductivity (κ) can be modulated for optimum TE performance. Further, the understanding of the fundamental properties and their impact on TE parameters is not well understood because of their complex structures. We have investigated the vibrational properties of CT compounds such as Cu1.25Te (CT1.25), Cu1.6Te (CT1.6), and Cu2Te (CT2) using temperature dependent Raman studies in the temperature range of 300–773 K. Several structural phases are probed through remarkably distinct spectra for the CT compounds. The temperature transitions are complex such as (i) eutectic melting into CuTe and Te for both CT1.6 (above ∼593 K) and CT1.25 (above ∼613 K) and (ii) the struc...