Local dipole formation in thermoelectric PbTe and SnTe: symmetry of high-temperature local distortions using RMC and total scattering

DOI

A promising family of thermoelectrics is based on rocksalt structured PbTe. To explain the thermal conductivity at high temperatures it is necessary to understand why the lead atoms move anomalously from their octahedral sites. This has been attributed to the formation of fluctuating local dipoles, anharmonic phonon behaviour or even challenged based on PDFFIT analysis, energy calculations and EXAFS results, respectively. This proposal will use RMCprofile analysis of higher-quality total scattering data over a wider range of temperatures than previously measured to determine unambiguously the nature of the disorder in terms of its magnitude and directionality and, crucially, whether the disorder is correlated throughout the lattice. This will resolve the debate about the preferred direction of lead atom movement and its similarity or otherwise to related ferroelectric phases.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.59898301
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/59898301
Provenance
Creator Professor Andrew Goodwin; Dr Emil Bozin; Professor Simon Billinge; Professor David Keen
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2017
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Natural Sciences; Physics
Temporal Coverage Begin 2014-07-27T23:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2014-07-29T23:00:00Z