The alloys (GeTe)x(AgSbTe2)100–x, commonly known as TAGS-x, are among the best performing p-type thermoelectric materials for the composition range 80 ≤ x ≤ 90 and in the temperature range 200–500 °C. They adopt a rhombohedrally distorted rocksalt structure at room temperature and are reported to undergo a reversible phase transition to a cubic structure at ∼250 °C. However, we show that, for the optimal x = 85 composition (TAGS-85), both the structural and thermoelectric properties are highly sensitive to the initial synthesis method employed. Single-phase rhombohedral samples exhibit the best thermoelectric properties but can only be obtained after an annealing step at 600 °C during initial cooling from the melt. Under faster cooling conditions, the samples obtained are inhomogeneous, containing multiple rhombohedral phases with a range of lattice parameters and exhibiting inferior thermoelectric properties. We also find that when the room-temperature rhombohedral phase is heated, an intermediate trigonal structure containing ordered cation vacancy layers is formed at ∼200 °C, driven by the spontaneous precipitation of argyrodite-type Ag8GeTe6 which alters the stoichiometry of the TAGS-85 matrix. The rhombohedral and trigonal phases of TAGS-85 coexist up to 380 °C, above which a single cubic phase is obtained and the Ag8GeTe6 precipitates redissolve into the matrix. On subsequent cooling a mixture of rhombohedral, trigonal, and Ag8GeTe6 phases is again obtained. Initially single-phase samples exhibit thermoelectric power factors of up to 0.0035 W m–1 K–2 at 500 °C, a value that is maintained on subsequent thermal cycling and which represents the highest power factor yet reported for undoped TAGS-85. Therefore, control over the structural homogeneity of TAGS-85 as demonstrated here is essential in order to optimize the thermoelectric performance.

We have synthesized members of an isostructural solid solution series KxBa1–xO2−δ (x < 0.41, δ < 0.11) containing mixed-valent dioxygen anions. Synthesis in liquid ammonia solution allows a continuous range of compounds to be prepared. X-ray and neutron diffraction show that KxBa1–xO2−δ adopts the tetragonal rocksalt-derived structure of the end members KO2 and BaO2, without any structural phase transition down to 5 K, the lowest temperature studied here. We identify four oxygen–oxygen stretching modes above 750 cm–1 in the measured Raman spectra, unlike the spectra of KO2 and BaO2 which both contain just a single mode. We use density functional theory calculations to show that the stretching modes in KxBa1–xO2−δ arise from in-phase and anti-phase coupling of the stretching of nearest-neighbor oxygen dimers when the valence state of the dimers lies between −1 and −2 because of mixed cation coordination. This coupling is a direct signature of a novel type of anionogenic mixed valency.

Magnetic dioxygen molecules can be used as building blocks of model systems to investigate spin-polarization that arises from unpaired p-electrons, the scientific potential of which is evidenced by phenomena such as spin-polarized transport in graphene. In solid elemental oxygen and all of the known ionic salts comprised of magnetic dioxygen anions and alkali metal cations, the dominant magnetic interactions are antiferromagnetic. We have induced novel ferromagnetic interactions by introducing oxygen deficiency in rubidium superoxide (RbO2). The anion vacancies in the resulting phase with composition RbO1.72 provide greater structural flexibility compared to RbO2 and facilitate a Jahn−Teller-driven order−disorder transition involving the anion orientations at ∼230 K, below which their axes become confined to a plane. This reorganization gives rise to short-range ferromagnetic ordering below ∼50 K. A ferromagnetic cluster-glass state then forms below ∼20 K, embedded in an antiferromagnetic matrix that orders at ∼5 K. We attribute this inhomogeneous magnetic order to either subtly different anion geometries within different structural nanodomains or to the presence of clusters in which double exchange takes place between the anions, which are mixed-valence in nature. We thus demonstrate that nonstoichiometry can be employed as a new route to induce ferromagnetism in alkali metal oxides.Keywords: cluster glass; ferromagnetism; Jahn−Teller; p-electrons; superoxide;