Structural Principles and Thermoelectric Properties of Polytypic Group 14 Clathrate-II Frameworks
We have investigated the structural principles and thermoelectric properties of polytypic group 14 clathrate-II frameworks using quantum chemical methods. The experimentally known cubic 3C polytype was found to be the energetically most favorable framework, but the studied hexagonal polytypes (2 H, 4 H, 6 H, 8 H, 10 H) lie energetically close to it. In the case of germanium, the energy difference between the 3C and 6H clathrate-II polytypes is ten times smaller than the difference between the experimentally known 3C-Ge (α-Ge) and 4H-Ge polytypes. The thermoelectric properties of guest-occupied clathrate-II structures were investigated for compositions Na-Rb-Ga-Ge and Ge-As-I. The clathrate-…
Semiconducting Clathrates Meet Gas Hydrates: Xe24[Sn136]
Semiconducting Group 14 clathrates are inorganic host–guest materials with a close structural relationship to gas hydrates. Here we utilize this inherent structural relationship to derive a new class of porous semiconductor materials: noble gas filled Group 14 clathrates (Ngx[M136], Ng=Ar, Kr, Xe and M=Si, Ge, Sn). We have carried out high-level quantum chemical studies using periodic Local-MP2 (LMP2) and dispersion-corrected density functional methods (DFT-B3LYP-D3) to properly describe the dispersive host–guest interactions. The adsorption of noble gas atoms within clathrate-II framework turned out to be energetically clearly favorable for several host–guest systems. For the energetically…