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Copper ion liquid-like thermoelectricsHuili Liu, Xun Shi, Fangfang Xu, Linlin Zhang, Wenqing Zhang, Lidong Chen, Qiang Li, Ctirad Uher, Tristan Day & G.Jeffrey Snyder

Nature Materials 11, 422–425 (2012) doi:10.1038/nmat3273Received 10 October 2011 Accepted 08 February 2012 Published online 11 March 2012

Advanced thermoelectric technology offers a potential for converting waste industrial heat into useful electricity, and anemission-free method for solid state cooling1, 2. Worldwide efforts to find materials with thermoelectric figure of merit, zT

values significantly above unity, are frequently focused on crystalline semiconductors with low thermal conductivity 2. Here wereport on Cu Se, which reaches a zT of 1.5 at 1,000 K, among the highest values for any bulk materials. Whereas the Seatoms in Cu Se form a rigid face-centred cubic lattice, providing a crystalline pathway for semiconducting electrons (or moreprecisely holes), the copper ions are highly disordered around the Se sublattice and are superionic with liquid-like mobility.This extraordinary ‘liquid-like’ behaviour of copper ions around a crystalline sublattice of Se in Cu Se results in anintrinsically very low lattice thermal conductivity which enables high zT in this otherwise simple semiconductor. This unusualcombination of properties leads to an ideal thermoelectric material. The results indicate a new strategy and direction forhigh-efficiency thermoelectric materials by exploring systems where there exists a crystalline sublattice for electronicconduction surrounded by liquid-like ions.

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Author informationAffiliationsCAS Key Laboratory of Energy-conversion Materials, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Shanghai 200050, ChinaHuili Liu, Xun Shi & Lidong Chen

Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, ChinaHuili Liu

State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, ChinaXun Shi, Fangfang Xu, Linlin Zhang & Wenqing Zhang

Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York11973, USAQiang Li

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Nature Materials ISSN 1476-1122 EISSN 1476-4660

© 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.

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Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USACtirad Uher

Department of Materials Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USATristan Day & G. Jeffrey Snyder

ContributionsH.L. and X.S. prepared the samples and measured the thermoelectric properties. F.X., W.Z., L.C., Q.L., G.J.S. and C.U.provided discussion on the experimental data. F.X. and L.Z. performed TEM measurements and analysis. T.D. and G.J.S.performed room-temperature speed of sound measurements. H.L., X.S., L.C., Q.L., C.U. and G.J.S. wrote and edited themanuscript.

Competing financial interestsThe authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to: Xun Shi or Lidong Chen

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