  The electrical, thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient of the quenched,
annealed and slowly cooled phases of the layer compound CuCrS2 have been
reported between 15K to 300K. We also confirm the antiferromagnetic transition
at 40K in them by our magnetic measurements between 2K and 300K. The crystal
flakes show a minimum around 100K in their in-plane resistance behavior. For
the polycrystalline pellets the resistivity depends on their flaky texture and
it attains at most 10 to 20 times of the room temperature value at the lowest
temperature of measurement. The temperature dependence is complex and no
definite activation energy of electronic conduction can be discerned. We find
that the Seebeck coefficient is between 200-450 microV/K and is unusually large
for the observed resistivity values of between 5-100 mOhm-cm at room
temperature. The figure of merit ZT for the thermoelectric application is 2.3
for our quenched phases, which is much larger than 1 for useful materials. The
thermal conductivity K is mostly due to lattice conduction and is reduced by
the disorder in Cu- occupancy in our quenched phase. A dramatic reduction of
electrical and thermal conductivity is found as the antiferromagnetic
transition is approached from the paramagnetic region, and K subsequently rises
in the ordered phase. We discuss the transport properties as being similar to a
doped Kondo-insulator.
