Large-Scale Colloidal Synthesis of Co-doped Cu2SnSe3 Nanocrystals for Thermoelectric Applications

The large-scale colloidal synthesis and thermoelectric (TE) properties of Co-doped Cu 2 SnSe 3 (CCTSe) alloys are investigated for the first time. The TE properties of the CCTSe bulks were measured in the temperature range from 300 K to 715 K. A large increment in the Seebeck coefficient and a dramatic reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity was observed in CCTSe compounds, and the dimensionless TE figure␣of merit ZT reaches a peak value of 0.63 at 715 K. These observations demonstrate an exciting scientific opportunity to raise the figure-of-merit of colloidally synthesized quaternary chalcogenide nanocrystals via optimized doping.