Ag8SiTe6: A New Thermoelectric Material with Low Thermal Conductivity

Here, we introduce a new thermoelectric material: Ag8SiTe6. Ag8SiTe6 indicated p-type semiconductor characteristics. The crystal structure of Ag8SiTe6 was quite complicated, which led to a very low thermal conductivity of 0.23 W m(-1) K-1 at room temperature. A relatively high thermoelectric figure of merit of 0.48 was obtained at 800 K, which was mainly due to the very low thermal conductivity. (c) 2009 The Japan Society of Applied Physics