Phonon anharmonicity in thermoelectric palladium sulfide by Raman spectroscopy

Recent advances in the study of thermoelectric materials mainly focus on the developments or designs of methods to reduce thermal conductivities. The information of phonon scattering processes is the key to the understanding of the thermal transfer and transport of a material. Such information is essential for the understanding of the thermal conductivity of a material itself and for the further improvement to demand the requirements for technological applications. Recently, palladium sulfide has been examined as a potential thermoelectric material. However, the high thermal conductivity limits its thermoelectric performance and technological applications. Here, Raman scattering spectroscopy is used to investigate the thermal transport properties of this material over a wide range of temperatures. The nonlinear temperature-dependent frequencies and linewidths of the Raman modes illustrate the anharmonicity of phonon scattering for thermal transport in this material. Three-phonon scattering processes are found to account for the thermal transport in the temperature range of 10-620 K. The high-energy bands of the B_g mode related to the light atom (S) contribute most to the thermal transport properties. More phonon scattering processes including higher orders are seemingly needed to further reduce the thermal conductivity of this material.