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The intrinsic thermal conductivity of SnSe

Nature volume 539, pages E1–E2 (2016)Cite this article

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ARISING FROM L.-D. Zhao et al. Nature 508, 373–377 (2014); doi:10.1038/nature13184

Several groups have been unable to reproduce the record high thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of SnSe reported in ref. 1. Zhao et al.1 measured an ultralow thermal conductivity (<0.4 W m−1 K−1 at 923 K) and consequently record high values of ZT ≈ 2.6 ± 0.3 and ZT ≈ 2.3 ± 0.3 at 923 K along the b and c directions, respectively, in their single-crystalline SnSe. However, after careful analysis of the data of ref. 1, we deduce that their samples are not fully dense and thus not truly single crystalline, implying that their reported thermal conductivities are not intrinsic to SnSe. This warrants further investigation into intrinsic thermal transport in SnSe single crystals and its use as a thermoelectric material. There is a Reply to this Comment by Zhao, L.-D. et al. Nature 539, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature19833 (2016).

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Figure 1: A scatter plot of thermal conductivity versus density of single and polycrystalline SnSe.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan

    Pai-Chun Wei & Y. Y. Chen

  2. Clemson Nanomaterials Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, 29634, South Carolina, USA

    S. Bhattacharya, J. He, R. Podila & A. M. Rao

  3. University School of Basic and Applied Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh (GGS) Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India

    S. Neeleshwar

Authors
  1. Pai-Chun Wei
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  2. S. Bhattacharya
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  3. J. He
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  4. S. Neeleshwar
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  5. R. Podila
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  6. Y. Y. Chen
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  7. A. M. Rao
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Contributions

P.-C.W. and Y.Y.C. contributed towards the synthesis of fully dense SnSe single crystals and the thermoelectric measurements, which were verified by S.B., J.H., R.P., A.M.R. and S.N. This combined study helped us to determine that packing density has a substantial effect on the figure of merit of SnSe.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to S. Bhattacharya, Y. Y. Chen or A. M. Rao.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Wei, PC., Bhattacharya, S., He, J. et al. The intrinsic thermal conductivity of SnSe. Nature 539, E1–E2 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19832

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