Ultralow Thermal Conductivity and Large Figure of Merit in Low-Cost and Nontoxic Core–Shell Cu@Cu₂O Nanocomposites

Identification of novel materials with enhanced thermoelectric (TE) performance is critical for advancing TE research. In this direction, this is the first report on TE properties of low-cost, nontoxic, and abundant core–shell Cu@Cu2O nanocomposites synthesized using a facile and cheap solution-phase method. They show ultralow thermal conductivity of nearly 10–3 of the copper bulk value, large thermopower of ∼373 μVK–1, and, consequently, a TE figure of merit of 0.16 at 320 K which is larger than those of many of the potential TE materials such as PbTe, SnSe, and SiGe, showing its potential for TE applications. The ultralow thermal conductivity is mainly attributed to the multiscale phonon scattering from intrinsic defects in Cu2O, grain boundaries, lattice-mismatched interface, as well as dissimilar vibrational properties. The large thermopower is associated with a sharp modulation in carrier density of states due to charge transfer between Cu and Cu2O nanoparticles and carrier energy filtering. They are tuned by varying the trioctylphosphine concentration.