| Summary: | Tin telluride is a thermoelectric material that enables the conversion of thermal energy to electricity. SnTe demonstrates a great potential for large-scale applications due to its lead-free nature and the similar crystal structure to PbTe. In this paper, the effect of dopants (i.e., Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Eu, Yb, Zn, Cd, Hg, and In) on the band structures and electrical transport properties of SnTe was investigated based on the first-principles density functional theory including spin–orbit coupling. The results show that Zn and Cd have a dominant effect of band convergence, leading to power factor enhancement. Indium induces obvious resonant states, while Hg-doped SnTe exhibits a different behavior with defect states locating slightly above the Fermi level.
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