Preparation and thermoelectric properties of sulfur doped Ag ₂Te nanoparticles via solvothermal methods

In this work, n-type Ag ₂Te nanoparticles are prepared by a solvothermal approach with uniform and controllable sizes, e.g. 5-15 nm. The usage of dodecanethiol during the synthesis effectively introduces sulfur doping into the sample, which optimizes the charge carrier concentration of the nanoparticles to >1 × 10 ²⁰ cm ^-3. This allows us to achieve the desired electrical resistivities of <5 × 10 ^-6 Ω m. It is demonstrated that Ag ₂Te particles prepared by this solvothermal process can exhibit high ZT values, e.g. 15 nm Ag ₂Te nanoparticles with effective sulphur doping show a maximum ZT value of ∼0.62 at 550 K.