ABSTRACT
Lead chalcogenides are traditional thermoelectric materials with decent ZT values. Lead (Pb) chalcogenides in particular are widely studied for the last few decades for medium-temperature power generation applications due to their decent ZT values at high temperature. Both PbTe and PbSe have intrinsic two valence bands contributing to high hole density of states and high Seebeck coefficients. To enhance the thermoelectric performance, nanostructuring is an effective method to reduce lattice thermal conductivity since the lattice thermal conductivity is an independent parameter among all the interdependent thermoelectric parameters. Thermoelectric materials have superior advantages from the perspective of providing clean energy by direct conversion of heat to electricity without moving parts. Therefore, it is more plausible to use a single material in a thermoelectric device to span the whole temperature range under which the device is operating. PbTe and its related alloys are one kind of the earliest studied middle-range temperature applications of thermoelectric materials.
