Thermodynamic and Thermoelectric Properties of the Canfieldite, (Ag8SnS6 ), in the Quasi-Harmonic Approximation
- Argyrodite-type materials have lately sparked a lot of research interest due to their thermoelectric properties.One promising candidate is canfieldite (Ag8SnS6), which has a Pna21 orthorhombic crystal structure at room temperature (RT). Recently, a new low-temperature (LT) phase transition of canfieldite at 120K has been found. Here, we investigate structural, vibrational and thermodynamic properties of Ag8SnS6 at room- and low-temperature employing density functional theory (DFT) and lattice dynamics computations. Thermal properties calculations were based on the quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA) as implemented in phonopy. We achieve good agreement with experiments. Thermal properties such as the constant-pressure heat capacity (Cp) and thermal conductivity are very close to experimental measurements. Furthermore, we compared RT and LT Ag8SnS6 Grüneisen parameters with argyrodites analogues, Ag8XS6 (X = Sn, Si, Ge), to arrive at an improved