Enhanced atomic ordering leads to high thermoelectric performance in AgSbTe 2

Ordering up better conductivity Improving a thermoelectric material's ability to convert heat to electricity involves optimizing one property without changing another in a detrimental way. Roychowdhury et al. found that cadmium doping of silver antimony telluride enhances cationic ordering, which simultaneously improves electric properties and helpfully decreases thermal conductivity (see the Perspective by Liu and Ibáñez). This strategy markedly improves thermoelectric properties and could be used for other materials. Science , this issue p. 722 ; see also p. 678