In Situ Dynamics during Heating of Copper-Intercalated Bismuth Telluride

Pralav P. Shetty, Neha Kondekar, Akila C. Thenuwara, Matthew G. Boebinger, Salem C. Wright, Mengkun Tian, Matthew T. McDowell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

The presence of a van der Waals gap within layered materials enables the intercalation of guest species, which can be used for tuning properties. The introduction of intercalant species may also lead to structural transformations across a range of temperatures and use conditions, but we have a limited understanding of the high-temperature evolution of intercalated layered materials. Here, we use in situ transmission electron microscopy to investigate temperature-dependent structural evolution of Bi2Te3, a layered material with well-known application as a thermoelectric, which contains intercalated Cu. As temperature is increased, the initially disordered Cu undergoes local ordering within the van der Waals gap, along with anisotropic sublimation behavior of the crystals. As the temperature is raised further, layered Cu2Te crystals nucleate and grow with a crystallographic relationship to the Bi2Te3 lattice. Notably, the presence of Cu decreases the thermal stability of the Bi2Te3 and substantially alters the transformation pathways during heating.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1246-1262
Number of pages17
JournalMatter
Volume3
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2020
Externally publishedYes

Funding

The authors acknowledge the support of the Department of the Navy , Office of Naval Research under ONR award number N00014-19-1-2195. This work was performed at the Georgia Tech Materials Characterization Facility and the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (grant ECCS-1542174 ). Support is also acknowledged from a Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation . The authors acknowledge Eric V. Woods, Rebhadevi Monikandan, David Tavakoli, Yong Ding, and Walter Henderson for their technical support throughout this project. The authors thank Drew A. Costenbader for help with editing the in situ videos.

Keywords

  • MAP3: Understanding
  • bismuth telluride
  • in situ STEM
  • in situ TEM
  • intercalation
  • layered materials
  • phase transformations
  • thermal stability

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