86371 20260128112904.0 doi 10.3390/ma12132057 sideral 115037 ART-2019-115037 eng Arias-Serrano, Blanca I. Exploring tantalum as a potential dopant to promote the thermoelectric performance of zinc oxide 2019 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Zinc oxide (ZnO) has being recognised as a potentially interesting thermoelectric material, allowing flexible tuning of the electrical properties by donor doping. This work focuses on the assessment of tantalum doping effects on the relevant structural, microstructural, optical and thermoelectric properties of ZnO. Processing of the samples with a nominal composition Zn1-xTaxO by conventional solid-state route results in limited solubility of Ta in the wurtzite structure. Electronic doping is accompanied by the formation of other defects and dislocations as a compensation mechanism and simultaneous segregation of ZnTa2O6 at the grain boundaries. Highly defective structure and partial blocking of the grain boundaries suppress the electrical transport, while the evolution of Seebeck coefficient and band gap suggest that the charge carrier concentration continuously increases from x = 0 to 0.008. Thermal conductivity is almost not affected by the tantalum content. The highest ZT~0.07 at 1175 K observed for Zn0.998Ta0.002O is mainly provided by high Seebeck coefficient (-464 µV/K) along with a moderate electrical conductivity of ~13 S/cm. The results suggest that tantalum may represent a suitable dopant for thermoelectric zinc oxide, but this requires the application of specific processing methods and compositional design to enhance the solubility of Ta in wurtzite lattice. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/FEDER/POCI-01-0145-031875 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/FEDER/UID/CTM/50011/2019 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/734187/EU/Spin conversion, logic storage in oxide-based electronics/SPICOLOST This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No H2020 734187-SPICOLOST info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es 3.057 2019 MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 132 / 314 = 0.42 2019 Q2 T2 0.647 2019 Materials Science (miscellaneous) 2019 Q2 Condensed Matter Physics 2019 Q2 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Xie, Wenjie Aguirre, Myriam H. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-1296-4793 Tobaldi, David M. Sarabando, Artur R. Rasekh, Shahed (orcid)0000-0003-3466-9952 Mikhalev, Sergey M. Frade, Jorge R. Weidenkaff, Anke Kovalevsky, Andrei V. 2003 395 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Física Materia Condensa. Área Física Materia Condensada 12, 13 (2019), 2057 [11 pp.] Materials (Basel) Materials 1996-1944 5299580 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/86371/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 105592 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/86371/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:86371 articulos driver 2026-01-28-11:25:02 ARTICLE