Modulating Electrical Transport Properties Of Snse Crystal To Improve The Thermoelectric Power Factor By Adjusting Growth Method

The SnSe crystal is a promising candidate in the field of thermoelectric materials. In order to elucidate basic physics in the SnSe system, here we report the heavily hole doping SnSe single crystals by the flux method (using alkali halide as solvent). Compared to bad-metal behavior of SnSe grown by the Bridgeman method, the flux-grown SnSe crystals show the metallic conductive behavior consistent with the Landau Fermi liquid (resistivity rho similar to T-2) with temperatures ranging from 2 to 300 K. Combined angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and empirical Landau Fermi liquid theory, screening lengths lambda of Coulomb electron-electron interaction U of SnSe grown by the flux method are 6.6 angstrom and 6.1 eV, which are much higher than those of normal metals. Remarkably, the excellent electrical conductivity (870 S/cm) of the SnSe crystal grown by the flux method at room temperature is attributed to the higher hole concentration (similar to 3.8 x 10(19) cm(-3)) and large mobility (152.2 cm(2) V-1 s(-1)). Meanwhile, these SnSe crystals still have large Seebeck coefficients (similar to 190 mu V/K). Thus, the SnSe crystals grown by the flux method have an ultrahigh power factor [similar to 31.5 mu W/(cm K-2)] at room temperature, which is ten times larger than that of SnSe crystals grown by the Bridgeman method and as best as currently reported results. Our work shows a method for growing heavily hole-doped SnSe crystals, which provides a platform for understanding the electrical properties and improving its thermoelectric performance.