“…1 In space, radioisotope thermoelectric generators can provide steady power for decades and have been used on Mars and on deep-space probes. 2 Thermoelectric material performance is determined by the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT ¼ a 2 rT/(j e þ j l ), where a is the Seebeck coefficient, r is the electrical conductivity, T is the absolute temperature, and j e and j l are the electronic and lattice components of thermal conductivity, respectively.…”