The low-temperature modification of β-Ag₂Se has proven to be useful as a near-room-temperature thermoelectric material. Over the past years, research has been devoted to interstitial, vacancy, and substitutional doping into the parent β-Ag₂Se structure, aiming at tuning the material’s charge and heat transport properties to enhance thermoelectric performance. The transformation of β-Ag₂Se into α-Ag₂Se at ∼134 °C and the low solubility of dopants are the main obstacles for the doping approach. Herein, we report a facile, safe, scalable, and cost-effective benchtop approach to successfully produce metal-doped β-Ag₂Se. The doped materials display a remarkable enhancement of thermoelectric performance with a record-high peak zT of 1.30 at 120 °C and an average zT of ∼1.15 in the 25–120 °C range for 0.2 at. % Zn-doped Ag₂Se. The enhancement in zT is attributed to point defects created by Zn doping into Ag vacancies/interstitials, which enhances the scattering of phonons and tunes the charge carrier properties, leading to the significant suppression of thermal conductivity. The simplicity of the synthetic method developed herein and the high performance of the final products provide an avenue to produce high-quality Ag₂Se-based thermoelectric materials.

中文翻译：

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丰盛大餐的食谱：从元素硒到高级热电 β-Ag2Se 的台式路线

_{β-Ag 2} Se的低温改性已被证明可用作近室温热电材料。在过去的几年里，研究一直致力于对母体β-Ag ₂ Se结构进行间隙、空位和替代掺杂，旨在调节材料的电荷和热传输特性以增强热电性能。 β-Ag ₂ Se 在~134 °C 下转变为α-Ag ₂ Se 以及掺杂剂的低溶解度是该掺杂方法的主要障碍。在此，我们报告了一种简便、安全、可扩展且经济高效的台式方法，可成功生产金属掺杂的 β-Ag ₂ Se。掺杂材料显示出热电性能显着增强，在 120 °C 时峰值zT达到创纪录的 1.30，在 0.2 at 的 25-120 °C 范围内平均zT为 ∼1.15。 % Zn 掺杂 Ag ₂ Se。zT的增强归因于 Zn 掺杂到 Ag 空位/间隙中产生的点缺陷，这增强了声子的散射并调整了载流子特性，从而显着抑制了热导率。本文开发的合成方法的简单性和最终产品的高性能提供了生产高质量Ag ₂ Se基热电材料的途径。