Simultaneously Breaking the Double Schottky Barrier and Phonon Transport in SrTiO₃-Based Thermoelectric Ceramics via Two-Step Reduction

The low powder factor (PF) of polycrystalline oxide perovskites induced by the resistive grain boundaries or known as double Schottky barrier (DSB) greatly restricts their thermoelectric performance in application. Here, a general protocol including (i) powder and (ii) bulk reduction in H2/Ar forming gas is demonstrated to break the DSB in La and Nb codoped SrTiO3. While the powder reduction guarantees a high carrier concentration by fully stimulating the donor doping effect, the bulk reduction effectively lowers the DSB by influencing the point defects at grain boundaries, which is proved by the combination of cathode luminescence spectra and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in transmission electron microscopy. The Hall mobility can approach 10 cm2 V–1 s–1 after two-step reduction, which is similar to the level of single crystals. However, the Seebeck coefficient is not compromised, giving rise to high PF values up to 1.70 mW m–1 K–1 under proper reduction strength. Meanwhile, the reduction process also promotes mild precipitation of Nb nanoparticles, thus effectively lowering the lattice thermal conductivity by scattering phonons. As a result, a remarkable figure of merit reaching 0.4 at 700 K is obtained, which validates the two-step reduction as a reliable strategy toward “electron crystal-phonon glass” behavior in SrTiO3-based perovskites.