Abstract
We have performed a detailed study of the electrical and thermal conductivities and thermoelectric power behavior of an antiferromagnetic-layer compound of chromium, CuCrS2, from 15 K to 300 K. Unlike previous studies, we find noninsulating properties and sensitive dependence on the preparation method, the microstructure, and the flaky texture formed in polycrystalline samples after extended sintering at high temperatures. Flakes are found to be metallic, with strong localization effects in the conductivity on cooling to low temperatures. The antiferromagnetic transition temperature T N (=40 K) remains essentially unaffected. The Seebeck coefficient is found to be in the range of 150 μV/K to 450 μV/K, which is exceptionally large, and becomes temperature independent at high temperatures, even for specimens with low resistivity values of 5 mΩ cm to 200 mΩ cm. We find the thermal conductivity κ to be low, viz. 5 mW/K cm to 30 mW/K cm. This can be attributed mostly to the dominance of lattice conduction over electronic conduction. The value of κ is further reduced by disorder in Cu occupancy in the quenched phase. We also observe an unusually strong dip in κ at T N, which is probably due to strong magnetocrystalline coupling in these compounds. Finally we discuss the properties of CuCrS2 as a heavily doped Kondo-like insulator in its paramagnetic phase. The combination of the electronic properties observed in CuCrS2 makes it a potential candidate for various thermoelectric applications.
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Acknowledgements
G.C. Tewari and T.S. Tripathi acknowledge the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) India. We deeply acknowledge the help and valuable suggestions of Dr G. Jeffrey Snyder, Materials Science, California Institute of Technology, California. We also acknowledge Dr. Alok Banerjee UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research (CSR), Indore, India for the magnetic measurements at the 14T facility.
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Tewari, G.C., Tripathi, T.S. & Rastogi, A.K. Thermoelectric Properties of Layer-Antiferromagnet CuCrS2 . J. Electron. Mater. 39, 1133–1139 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-010-1185-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-010-1185-5