scholarly journals Efficient interlayer charge release for high-performance layered thermoelectrics

Author(s):  
Hao Zhu ◽  
Zhou Li ◽  
Chenxi Zhao ◽  
Xingxing Li ◽  
Jinlong Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract Many layered superlattice materials intrinsically possess large Seebeck coefficient and low lattice thermal conductivity, but poor electrical conductivity because of the interlayer transport barrier for charges, which has become a stumbling block for achieving high thermoelectric performance. Herein, taking BiCuSeO superlattice as an example, it is demonstrated that efficient interlayer charge release can increase carrier concentration, thereby activating multiple Fermi pockets through Bi/Cu dual vacancies and Pb codoping. Experimental results reveal that the extrinsic charges, which are introduced by Pb and initially trapped in the charge-reservoir [Bi2O2]2+ sublayers, are effectively released into [Cu2Se2]2− sublayers via the channels bridged by Bi/Cu dual vacancies. This efficient interlayer charge release endows dual-vacancy- and Pb-codoped BiCuSeO with increased carrier concentration and electrical conductivity. Moreover, with increasing carrier concentration, the Fermi level is pushed down, activating multiple converged valence bands, which helps to maintain a relatively high Seebeck coefficient and yield an enhanced power factor. As a result, a high ZT value of ∼1.4 is achieved at 823 K in codoped Bi0.90Pb0.06Cu0.96SeO, which is superior to that of pristine BiCuSeO and solely doped samples. The present findings provide prospective insights into the exploration of high-performance thermoelectric materials and the underlying transport physics.

2007 ◽  
Vol 1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mi-kyung Han ◽  
Huijun Kong ◽  
Ctirad Uher ◽  
Mercouri G Kanatzidis

AbstractWe performed comparative investigations of the Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Bi, Sb) (x = 0, 0.14, 0.3) system to better understand the roles of Sb and Bi on the thermoelectric properties. In both systems, the electrical conductivity nearly keeps the same values, while the Seebeck coefficient decreases dramatically in going from Sb to Bi. Compared to the lattice thermal conductivity of PbTe, that of AgPb18BiTe20 is substantially reduced. The lattice thermal conductivity of the Bi analog, however, is higher than that of AgPb18SbTe20 and this is attributed largely to the decrease in the degree of mass fluctuation between the nanostructures and the matrix (for the Bi analog). As a result the dimensionless figure of merit ZT of Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Bi) is found to be smaller than that of Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Sb).


2008 ◽  
Vol 368-372 ◽  
pp. 547-549
Author(s):  
Jun Jiang ◽  
Ya Li Li ◽  
Gao Jie Xu ◽  
Ping Cui ◽  
Li Dong Chen

In the present study, n-type (Bi2Se3)x(Bi2Te3)1-x crystals with various chemical compositions were fabricated by the zone melting method. Thermoelectric properties, including Seebeck coefficient (α), electrical conductivity (σ) and thermal conductivity (κ), were measured in the temperature range of 300-500 K. The influence of the variations of Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 content on thermoelectric properties was studied. The increase of Bi2Se3 content (x) caused an increase in carrier concentration and thus an increase of σ and a decrease of α. The maximum figure of merit (ZT = α2σT/κ) of 0.87 was obtained at about 325 K for the composition of 93%Bi2Te3-7%Bi2Se3 with doping TeI4.


2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 3343-3346 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. F. Tang ◽  
L. M. Zhang ◽  
R. Z. Yuan ◽  
L. D. Chen ◽  
T. Goto ◽  
...  

Effects of Ba filling fraction and Ni content on the thermoelectric properties of n-type BayNixCo4−xSb12 (x = 0−0.1, y = 0−0.4) were investigated at temperature range of 300 to 900 K. Thermal conductivity decreased with increasing Ba filling fraction and temperature. When y was fixed at 0.3, thermal conductivity decreased with increasing Ni content and reached a minimum value at about x = 0.05. Lattice thermal conductivity decreased with increasing Ni content, monotonously (y ≤ 0.1). Electron concentration and electrical conductivity increased with increasing Ba filling fraction and Ni content. Seebeck coefficient increased with increasing temperature and decreased with increasing Ba filling fraction and Ni content. The maximum ZT value of 1.25 was obtained at about 900 K for n-type Ba0.3Ni0.05Co3.95Sb12.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 3854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun-Young Cho ◽  
Muhammad Siyar ◽  
Woo Chan Jin ◽  
Euyheon Hwang ◽  
Seung-Hwan Bae ◽  
...  

SnSe is considered as a promising thermoelectric (TE) material since the discovery of the record figure of merit (ZT) of 2.6 at 926 K in single crystal SnSe. It is, however, difficult to use single crystal SnSe for practical applications due to the poor mechanical properties and the difficulty and cost of fabricating a single crystal. It is highly desirable to improve the properties of polycrystalline SnSe whose TE properties are still not near to that of single crystal SnSe. In this study, in order to control the TE properties of polycrystalline SnSe, polycrystalline SnSe–SnTe solid solutions were fabricated, and the effect of the solid solution on the electrical transport and TE properties was investigated. The SnSe1−xTex samples were fabricated using mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses revealed that the solubility limit of Te in SnSe1−xTex is somewhere between x = 0.3 and 0.5. With increasing Te content, the electrical conductivity was increased due to the increase of carrier concentration, while the lattice thermal conductivity was suppressed by the increased amount of phonon scattering. The change of carrier concentration and electrical conductivity is explained using the measured band gap energy and the calculated band structure. The change of thermal conductivity is explained using the change of lattice thermal conductivity from the increased amount of phonon scattering at the point defect sites. A ZT of ~0.78 was obtained at 823 K from SnSe0.7Te0.3, which is an ~11% improvement compared to that of SnSe.


Author(s):  
I. Mili ◽  
H. Latelli ◽  
T. Ghellab ◽  
Z. Charifi ◽  
H. Baaziz ◽  
...  

Based on the electronic structure, the physical properties of [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text], 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) Zintl compounds are studied. The transport properties can be significantly changed by varying the composition [Formula: see text]. The materials under study are more metallic with increasing [Formula: see text] and behaves like a semiconductor when [Formula: see text] decreases. It is found that [Formula: see text] exhibits a larger thermopower magnitude ([Formula: see text] at [Formula: see text] and the Seebeck coefficient decreases as [Formula: see text] increases. The calculated figure of merit factor of [Formula: see text] is found to be low, this is explained by the fact that its structure is very compact and its bandgap is small which lead to high electrical and thermal conductivity due to high carrier concentration ([Formula: see text] at [Formula: see text]). On other hand a narrow-gap (0.46 eV for [Formula: see text]), provides a balance between a high Seebeck coefficient and low electronic thermal conductivity, with a slight increase in the carrier concentration when the temperature increases ([Formula: see text] at 600 K). As a consequence, [Formula: see text] compound is predicted to have good performance for thermoelectric applications. The electrical [Formula: see text] and the thermal [Formula: see text] conductivity for [Formula: see text] compound in both directions (along [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]-axes) are calculated. It is obtained that [Formula: see text] is 120% of [Formula: see text] at high-temperature, whereas [Formula: see text] Seebeck coefficient was higher than [Formula: see text] especially at [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]. The large value of [Formula: see text] showed that the transport is dominated by zz-axis.


2012 ◽  
Vol 724 ◽  
pp. 385-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sin Wook You ◽  
Soon Mok Choi ◽  
Won Seon Seo ◽  
Sun Uk Kim ◽  
Kyung Wook Jang ◽  
...  

Group BI(Cu, Ag)-, BII(Zn)- and BIII(Al, In)-doped Mg2Si compounds were synthesized by solid state reaction and mechanical alloying. Electronic transport properties (Hall coefficient, carrier concentration and mobility) and thermoelectric properties (Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, power factor, thermal conductivity and figure of merit) were examined. Mg2Si powder was synthesized successfully by solid state reaction at 773 K for 6 h and doped by mechanical alloying for 24 h. It was fully consolidated by hot pressing at 1073 K for 1 h. The electrical conductivity increased by doping due to an increase in the carrier concentration. However, the thermal conductivity did not changed significantly by doping, which was due to much larger contribution of the lattice thermal conductivity over the electronic thermal conductivity. Group BIII(Al, In) elements were more effective to enhance the thermoelectric properties of Mg2Si.


2013 ◽  
Vol 06 (05) ◽  
pp. 1340006 ◽  
Author(s):  
JINGSHU XU ◽  
CHENGUANG FU ◽  
JIAN XIE ◽  
XINBING ZHAO ◽  
TIEJUN ZHU

The p-type skutterudite compounds of ( Pr 0.25 Nd 0.75)x Fe 3 CoSb 12 (x = 0.67–0.78) have been successfully synthesized by levitation melting followed by annealing and spark plasma sintering. The thermoelectric properties have been characterized by the measurements of Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity in the temperature range from 300 K to 850 K. The improvement in the thermoelectric properties was realized due to the reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity when the voids were partially filled by Pr 0.25 Nd 0.75. The maximum ZT value of ~ 0.83 for ( Pr 0.25 Nd 0.75)0.76 Fe 3 CoSb 12 was obtained at 700 K.


2012 ◽  
Vol 260-261 ◽  
pp. 34-39
Author(s):  
Min Hee Hong ◽  
Chang Sun Park ◽  
Yong June Choi ◽  
Hong Sup Lee ◽  
Hyung Ho Park

The efficiency of a thermoelectric device depends on material properties through the figure of merit, Z = σS2/κ, where σ, S, and κ are electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity, respectively. To maximize the thermoelectric figure of merit of a material, high electrical conductivity, high Seebeck coefficient, and low thermal conductivity are required. This work has focused on the synthesis of a mesoporous titania films for its application in thermoelectric generation. The mesoporous titania film was synthesized with titanium tetraisopropoxide. The triblock copolymer, Pluronic P-123 (EO20PO70EO20) was used as surfactant in 1-propanol. As a result, an improvement of electrical conductivity and reduced annealing with a lowering of thermal conductivity by distributions of pores were found to be effective to enhance the thermoelectric property.


Author(s):  
Mi-Kyung Han ◽  
Yingshi Jin ◽  
Da-Hee Lee ◽  
Sung-Jin Kim

In order to understand the effect of Pb-CuI co-doping on the thermoelectric performance of Bi2Te3, n-type Bi2Te3 co-doped with x at% CuI and 1/2x at% Pb (x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07, and 0.10) were prepared via high temperature solid state reaction and consolidated using spark plasma sintering. Electron and thermal transport properties, i.e., electrical conductivity, carrier concentration, Hall mobility, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity, of CuI-Pb co-doped Bi2Te3 were measured in the temperature range from 300 K to 523 K and compared to corresponding x% of CuI-doped Bi2Te3 and undoped Bi2Te3. The addition of a small amount of Pb significantly decreased the carrier concentration, which could be attributed to the holes from Pb atoms, thus the CuI-Pb co-doped samples show a lower electrical conductivity and a higher Seebeck coefficient compared to CuI-doped samples with similar x values. The incorporation of Pb into CuI-doped Bi2Te3 rarely changed the power factor because of the trade-off relationship between the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient. The total thermal conductivity(κtot) of co-doped samples (κtot ~1.4 W/m∙K at 300 K) is slightly lower than that of 1% CuI-doped Bi2Te3 (κtot~1.5 W/m∙K at 300 K) and undoped Bi2Te3 (κtot ~1.6 W/m∙K at 300 K) due to the alloy scattering. The 1% CuI-Pb co-doped Bi2Te3 sample shows the highest ZT value of 0.96 at 370 K. All data on electrical and thermal transport properties suggest that the thermoelectric properties of Bi2Te3 and its operating temperature can be controlled by co-doping.


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