Diverse lattice dynamics in ternary Cu-Sb-Se compounds

Searching and designing materials with extremely low lattice thermal conductivity (LTC) has attracted considerable attention in material sciences. Here we systematically demonstrate the diverse lattice dynamics of the ternary Cu-Sb-Se compounds due to the different chemical-bond environments. For Cu3SbSe4 and CuSbSe2, the chemical bond strength is nearly equally distributed in crystalline bulk, and all the atoms are constrained to be around their equilibrium positions. Their thermal transport behaviors are well interpreted by the perturbative phonon-phonon interactions. While for Cu3SbSe3 with obvious chemical-bond hierarchy, one type of atoms is weakly bonded with surrounding atoms, which leads the structure to the part-crystalline state. The part-crystalline state makes a great contribution to the reduction of thermal conductivity that can only be effectively described by including a rattling-like scattering process in addition to the perturbative method. Current results may inspire new approaches to designing materials with low lattice thermal conductivities for high-performance thermoelectric conversion and thermal barrier coatings.