Thermoelectric Properties of the CuGaTe_2 Crystal from First-principles Calculations:the Role of Doping and Temperature

The thermoelectric properties of CuGaTe2 crystal are investigated by using the first-principles method and semi-classical Boltzmann theory. We find that the electronic structure of CuGaTe2 is favorable for p-type doping. The transport coefficients can be tuned by doping and changing the work temperature to yield an optimized thermoelectric performance. The optimal doping concentration is 2 × 1020 cm-3, in which the maximum ZT value can reach 1.65 at 900 K. The results suggest CuGaTe2 might find promising applications as good thermoelectric materials, particularly at high temperature.