After more than three decades of molecular and carbon-based electronics, the creation of airand thermally stable n-type materials remains a challenge in the development of future p/n junction devices such as solar cells and thermoelectric modules. Here we report a series of ordinary salts such as sodium chloride (NaCl), sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) with crown ethers as new doping reagents for converting single-walled carbon nanotubes to stable n-type materials. Thermoelectric analyses revealed that these new n-type single-walled carbon nanotubes displayed remarkable air stability even at 100 o C for more than one month. Their thermoelectric properties with a dimensionless figure-of-merit (ZT) of 0.1 make these new n-type single-walled carbon nanotubes a most promising candidate for future n-type carbon-based thermoelectric materials.

We have prepared 2% Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin films on SrTiO3 (STO) and Al2O3 substrates by Pulsed Laser Deposition technique at various deposition temperatures (Tdep = 300 °C–600 °C). Transport and thermoelectric properties of AZO thin films were studied in low temperature range (300 K–600 K). AZO/STO films present superior performance respect to AZO/Al2O3 films deposited at the same temperature, except for films deposited at 400 °C. Best film is the fully c-axis oriented AZO/STO deposited at 300 °C, which epitaxial strain and dislocation density are the lowest: electrical conductivity 310 S/cm, Seebeck coefficient −65 μV/K, and power factor 0.13 × 10−3 W m−1 K−2 at 300 K. Its performance increases with temperature. For instance, power factor is enhanced up to 0.55 × 10−3 W m−1 K−2 at 600 K, surpassing the best AZO film previously reported in literature.

Here, we investigate the combined effect of the nanoscale crystal grains and porosity on the lattice thermal conductivity of bismuth-telluride-based bulk alloys using both experimental studies and modeling. The fabricated bulk alloys exhibit average grain sizes of 30 < d < 60 nm and porosities of 12% < Φ < 18%. The total thermal conductivities were measured using a laser flash method at room temperature, and they were in the range 0.24 to 0.74 W/m/K. To gain insight into the phonon transport in the nanocrystalline and nanoporous bulk alloys, we estimate the lattice thermal conductivities and compare them with those obtained from a simplified phonon transport model that accounts for the grain size effect in combination with the Maxwell-Garnett model for the porosity effect. The results of this combined model are consistent with the experimental results, and it shows that the grain size effect in the nanoscale regime accounts for a significant portion of the reduction in lattice thermal conductivity.

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