Intrinsic effects of substitution and intercalation on thermal transport in two-dimensional TiS$_2$ single crystals

Abstract

The promising thermoelectric material TiS$_2$ can be easily chemically doped and intercalated. We present here studies of single crystals that are intercalated with excess Ti or Co, or substituted with Ta. We demonstrate the intrinsic impact of these dopants on the thermal transport in the absence of grain boundary scattering. We show that Ta doping has the greatest impact on the thermal scattering rate per ion added, leading to a five-fold reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity as compared to stoichiometric single crystals.