热电材料是一种新的环境友好型功能材料，能够实现热能和电能之间的相互转换。目前限制热电材料大规模应用的根本原因在于其普遍低下的能源转换效率，特别是在高温区间(>1000K)，性能出众的热电材料尤为缺乏。在前期工作中，申请人通过高温固相合成法获得一例具有三维孔道结构化合物LuCu3Te3，该材料不仅具有较高的热稳定性（>1373K）和超低的热导率（~0.2W/K/m），而且热电优值ZT在1000K达到1.3，高于绝大多数已知材料在该温度下的ZT值，有望成为一类具有应用前景的新颖高温热电材料。目前关于三元稀土铜碲化合物的高温热电性质研究还很薄弱，基于此，本研究项目拟通过对三元RECu3Te3（RE=稀土元素）体系化合物的固相合成，晶体生成和热电性质的研究，旨在获得ZT>1.5的新型高温热电材料，并且还将通过理论研究，深入探讨该类材料具有高效热电性能的特殊结构原因。

As a new kind of environmentally friendly functional material, thermoelectric (TE) materials can achieve reversible conversion between heat and electricity. However, current TE materials surfer low energy conversion efficiencies, which limits their broader applications. In the case of high-temperature (>1000 K) TE power generation, there is still a lack of suitable materials. Recently, a novel ternary rare earth telluride LuCu3Te3 with 3D framework structure was obtained by high-temperature solid-state reaction. It not only gives rise to excellent thermal stability (>1373K) and ultra-low thermal conductivity (~0.2W/K/m) but also exceptional dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT value (ZT = 1.3@1000K). Such ZT value is higher than the majority of known TE materials at this temperature, and LuCu3Te3 is expected to become a promising new TE candidate for high-temperature applications. At present, the study on the TE properties of ternary rare-earth copper tellurides (RECu3Te3) system at high-temperature is still rare, and this research project by exploring solid-state synthesis, crystal growth and TE properties of the ternary system, and aimed at ZT>1.5 new high-temperature TE materials, in addition, theoretical studies have aided the understanding of electronic structures and TE performances.