Enhancement of Thermoelectric Figure-of-Merit by Resonant States of Aluminum Doping in Lead Selenide

By adding aluminium (Al) into lead selenide (PbSe), we successfully prepared n-type PbSe thermoelectric materials with a figure-of-merit (\textit{ZT}) of 1.3 at 850 K. Such high \textit{ZT} is achieved by a combination of high Seebeck coefficient caused by very possibly the resonant states in the conduction band created by Al dopant and low thermal conductivity from nanosized phonon scattering centers.