Intrinsically ultralow thermal conductive inorganic solids for high thermoelectric performance

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials which can convert heat energy to electricity relies on crystalline inorganic solid state compounds exhibiting low phonon transport (i.e. low thermal conductivity) without much inhibiting the electrical transport....

Enhanced Band Convergence and Ultra‐Low Thermal Conductivity Lead to High Thermoelectric Performance in SnTe

“…Waste heat is ubiquitous end or side product of most of the energy usage cycle.U se of thermoelectric (TE) material to convert wasted heat to electricity is an emerging solution. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Theperformance of aTEmaterial is governed by fundamental parameters such as Seebeck coefficient (S), electrical conductivity (s)a nd total thermal conductivity ((k tot ) = electronic (k e ) + lattice (k lat )t hermal conductivity), which all together give rise to the dimension less figure of merit:z T= S 2 sT/(k e + k lat ). However,the extreme entangled relationship among these parameters deters to achieve high zT.T hus, decoupling the electronic and thermal transport with maximization of power factor (S 2 s)a nd minimization of thermal conductivity are desirable to develop efficient TE material.…”

Phonon anharmonicity in bulk ZrTe5

“…[ 14,15 ] The weak interlayer van der Waals forces along the b axis give rise to soft optical modes, which in turn can couple with the heat carrying acoustic phonons and hinder phonon transport as well as reduce the lattice thermal conductivity. [ 39 ] Furthermore, soft Raman modes are intimately related to the vibration directions such as in‐plane or out‐of‐plane. As exhibited in Figure 3, the out‐of‐plane related mode is more sensitive to the temperature than the in‐plane vibrated mode.…”

Enhanced Band Convergence and Ultra‐Low Thermal Conductivity Lead to High Thermoelectric Performance in SnTe

“…Waste heat is ubiquitous end or side product of most of the energy usage cycle. Use of thermoelectric (TE) material to convert wasted heat to electricity is an emerging solution [1–6] . The performance of a TE material is governed by fundamental parameters such as Seebeck coefficient ( S ), electrical conductivity ( σ ) and total thermal conductivity (( κ tot )=electronic ( κ e ) + lattice ( κ lat ) thermal conductivity), which all together give rise to the dimension less figure of merit: zT= S 2 σT /( κ e + κ lat ).…”