Applied physics letters, 2014-08, Vol.105 (5)
2014
Details
- Autor(en) / Beteiligte
- Titel
- Enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit through the reduction of bipolar thermal conductivity with heterostructure barriers
- Ist Teil von
- Applied physics letters, 2014-08, Vol.105 (5)
- Ort / Verlag
- Melville: American Institute of Physics
- Erscheinungsjahr
- 2014
- Link zum Volltext
- Quelle
- AIP Journals Complete
- Beschreibungen/Notizen
- In this paper, we present theoretically that the thermoelectric figure of merit for a semiconductor material with a small band gap can be significantly enhanced near the intrinsic doping regime at high temperatures via the suppression of bipolar thermal conductivity when the minority carriers are selectively blocked by heterostructure barriers. This scheme is particularly effective in nanostructured materials where the lattice thermal conductivity is lowered by increased phonon scatterings at the boundaries, so that the electronic thermal conductivity including the bipolar term is limiting the figure of merit zT. We show that zT can be enhanced to above 3 for p-type PbTe, and above 2 for n-type PbTe at 900 K with minority carrier blocking, when the lattice thermal conductivity is as low as 0.3 W/m K.
- Sprache
- Englisch
- Identifikatoren
- ISSN: 0003-6951eISSN: 1077-3118DOI: 10.1063/1.4892653Titel-ID: cdi_osti_scitechconnect_1384265
- Format
- –
- Schlagworte
- bio-inspired, charge transport, defects, electrodes - solar, energy storage (including batteries and capacitors), ENGINEERING, Figure of merit, Heat conductivity, Heat transfer, Heterostructures, Intermetallic compounds, materials and chemistry by design, MATERIALS SCIENCE, Minority carriers, Nanostructured materials, optics, phonons, Semiconductor materials, solar (photovoltaic), solid state lighting, synthesis (novel materials), synthesis (scalable processing), synthesis (self-assembly), Thermal conductivity, thermoelectric, Thermoelectricity