Enhancement of Thermoelectric Figure‐of‐Merit by a Bulk Nanostructuring Approach

Lan, Yucheng; Minnich, Austin J.; Chen, Gang; Ren, Zhifeng

doi:10.1002/adfm.200901512

Cited by 841 publications

(500 citation statements)

References 215 publications

(299 reference statements)

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“…We show, based on both experiments and first-principles simulation, that a small amount of In-doping helps create resonant states around the Fermi level inside the valence band, which increases the Seebeck coefficient, especially at room temperature, leading to improvements in both average ZT and peak ZT, combined with the decreased lattice thermal conductivity due to the increased density of grain boundaries (32)(33)(34). Peak ZT value reaches ∼1.1 at about 873 K for SnTe doped with 0.25 atom % In.…”

Section: G Ood Thermoelectric (Te) Materials Should Not Only Have Highmentioning

confidence: 99%

High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

Zhang

Liao

Lan

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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From an environmental perspective, lead-free SnTe would be preferable for solid-state waste heat recovery if its thermoelectric figure-of-merit could be brought close to that of the leadcontaining chalcogenides. In this work, we studied the thermoelectric properties of nanostructured SnTe with different dopants, and found indium-doped SnTe showed extraordinarily large Seebeck coefficients that cannot be explained properly by the conventional two-valence band model. We attributed this enhancement of Seebeck coefficients to resonant levels created by the indium impurities inside the valence band, supported by the firstprinciples simulations. This, together with the lower thermal conductivity resulting from the decreased grain size by ball milling and hot pressing, improved both the peak and average nondimensional figure-of-merit (ZT) significantly. A peak ZT of ∼1.1 was obtained in 0.25 atom % In-doped SnTe at about 873 K.

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Section: G Ood Thermoelectric (Te) Materials Should Not Only Have Highmentioning

confidence: 99%

High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

Zhang

Liao

Lan

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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676

765

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“…Many thermoelectric materials have been identified till now, such as Bi 2 Te 3 , skutterudites Co 4 Sb 12 , SiGe alloys, PbTe, et al 180,181 High ZT can be achieved either by increasing the thermoelectric power-factor (S 2 σ ) or by decreasing thermal conductivity. Both methods can be realized via nanostructuring.…”

Section: Enhancement Of Thermoelectric Efficiency In Nano Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal transport in nanostructures

et al. 2012

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This review summarizes recent studies of thermal transport in nanoscaled semiconductors. Different from bulk materials, new physics and novel thermal properties arise in low dimensional nanostructures, such as the abnormal heat conduction, the size dependence of thermal conductivity, phonon boundary/edge scatterings. It is also demonstrated that phonons transport super-diffusively in low dimensional structures, in other words, Fourier's law is not applicable. Based on manipulating phonons, we also discuss envisioned applications of nanostructures in a broad area, ranging from thermoelectrics, heat dissipation to phononic devices.

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“…The detailed analysis of these defect disks and their strain fields will be reported in a separate paper. 18 Figure 3 shows the TE properties 19 a reference PbTe sample 20 doped with Na. Our samples have a slightly higher electrical conductivity ͓Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Thermoelectric property studies on thallium-doped lead telluride prepared by ball milling and hot pressing

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2010

Journal of Applied Physics

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Thallium doping into lead telluride has been demonstrated to increase the dimensionless thermoelectric figure-of-merit ͑ZT͒ by enhancing Seebeck coefficient due to the creation of resonant states close to Fermi level without affecting the thermal conductivity. However, the process is tedious, energy consuming, and small in quantities since it involves melting, slow cooling for crystal growth, long time annealing, post-crushing and hot pressing. Here we show that a similar ZT value about 1.3 at 400°C is achieved on bulk samples with grain sizes of 3 -7 m by ball milling a mixture of elemental thallium, lead, and tellurium and then hot pressing the ball milled nanopowders. © 2010 American Institute of Physics. ͓doi:10.1063/1.3452323͔Thermoelectrics ͑TEs͒, as one of the most promising approaches for solid-state energy conversion between heat and electricity, is becoming increasingly important within the last decade as the availability and negative environmental impact of fossil fuels draw increasing attention. Various TE materials with a wide working temperature range ͑from 25 to 1000°C͒ for different applications in cooling and power generation have been extensively studied. The efficiency of TE devices is determined by a dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT = ͑S 2 / ͒T, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, the electrical conductivity, the thermal conductivity ͑sum of the electronic part e and the lattice part L ͒, and T the absolute temperature of the material. 1 Lead telluride ͑PbTe͒ is one of the most studied and used intermediate temperature TE materials with a ZT of about 1 at 380°C, 2 which is suitable for power generation applications such as waste heat recovery 3 and potentially in solar energy conversion. 4 However, the toxicity of Pb is a big concern, which slowed down the applications of such materials. Nevertheless, the interest in PbTe has significantly increased due to the demonstration of a ZT higher than 1.5 by creating nanosized inclusions in bulk crystalline materials ͑lead antimony silver telluride͒ using the traditional crystal growth technique, in which the improvement comes from thermal conductivity reduction due to the increased phonon scattering by the nanosized inclusions in the materials. 5 The formation of such inclusions is believed to be caused by substituting some Pb with Ag and Sb.Recently, a ZT of about 1.5 at around 500°C was also reported through improving the Seebeck coefficient 6 via creating resonant states close to Fermi level by using a 2 at. % thallium ͑Tl͒ to replace Pb ͑Tl 0.02 Pb 0.98 Te͒. However, the process is very tedious since it involves melting, slow cooling for crystal growth, long time annealing, post-crushing, and hot pressing for compacting the powders into dense bulk samples. Such a slow process is not practical to large scale production of multiple tons per year required by industrial applications.In the last few years, we have successfully demonstrated that large quantities of bulk nanostructured TE materials can be easily produced by ball milling and hot press...

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Enhancement of Thermoelectric Figure‐of‐Merit by a Bulk Nanostructuring Approach

Cited by 841 publications

References 215 publications

High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

High thermoelectric performance by resonant dopant indium in nanostructured SnTe

Thermal transport in nanostructures

Thermoelectric property studies on thallium-doped lead telluride prepared by ball milling and hot pressing

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