Exceptional figure of merit achieved in boron-dispersed GeTe-based thermoelectric composites

GeTe is a promising p-type material with increasingly enhanced thermoelectric properties reported in recent years, demonstrating its superiority for mid-temperature applications. In this work, the thermoelectric performance of GeTe is improved by a facile composite approach. We find that incorporating a small amount of boron particles into the Bi-doped GeTe leads to significant enhancement in power factor and simultaneous reduction in thermal conductivity, through which the synergistic modulation of electrical and thermal transport properties is realized. The thermal mismatch between the boron particles and the matrix induces high-density dislocations that effectively scatter the mid-frequency phonons, accounting for a minimum lattice thermal conductivity of 0.43 Wm−1K−1 at 613 K. Furthermore, the presence of boron/GeTe interfaces modifies the interfacial potential barriers, resulting in increased Seebeck coefficient and hence enhanced power factor (25.4 μWcm−1K−2 at 300 K). Consequently, we obtain a maximum figure of merit Zmax of 4.0 × 10−3 K−1 at 613 K in the GeTe-based composites, which is the record-high value in GeTe-based thermoelectric materials and also superior to most of thermoelectric systems for mid-temperature applications. This work provides an effective way to further enhance the performance of GeTe-based thermoelectrics.