Band structure and transport studies of copper selenide: An efficient thermoelectric material

We report the band structure calculations for high temperature cubic phase of copper selenide (Cu2Se) employing Hartree-Fock approximation using density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation. These calculations were further extended to theoretically estimate the electrical transport coefficients of Cu2Se employing Boltzmann transport theory, which show a reasonable agreement with the corresponding experimentally measured values. The calculated transport coefficients are discussed in terms of the thermoelectric (TE) performance of this material, which suggests that Cu2Se can be a potential p-type TE material with an optimum TE performance at a carrier concentration of similar to 4 - 6 x 10(21) cm(-3). (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.