Superlattices in thermoelectric applications

Sofo, Jorge O.; Mahan, G. D.

doi:10.1063/1.46847

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While huge enhancements on the in-plane figure of merit were predicted, the authors suppressed electron tunnelling and thermal currents between the layers by introducing infinite potential barriers and zero barrier widths. Later on it was shown, that for realistic barrier heights and widths the enhancement is rather moderate, predicting ZT values that at theirs best are a few percent larger than corresponding bulk materials 67,68 .…”

Section: B Quantum Well Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermoelectric transport in $\text{Bi}_2\text{Te}_3/\text{Sb}_2\text{Te}_3$ superlattices

Hinsche,

Yavorsky,

Gradhand

et al. 2012

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The thermoelectric transport properties of Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 superlattices are analyzed on the basis of first-principles calculations and semi-classical Boltzmann theory. The anisotropy of the thermoelectric transport under electron and hole-doping was studied in detail for different superlattice periods at changing temperature and charge carrier concentrations. A clear preference for thermoelectric transport under hole-doping, as well as for the in-plane transport direction was found for all superlattice periods. At hole-doping the electrical transport anisotropies remain bulk-like for all investigated systems, while under electron-doping quantum confinement leads to strong suppression of the cross-plane thermoelectric transport at several superlattice periods. In addition, insights on the Lorenz function, the electronic contribution to the thermal conductivity and the resulting figure of merit are given.

show abstract

Section: B Quantum Well Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermoelectric transport in $\text{Bi}_2\text{Te}_3/\text{Sb}_2\text{Te}_3$ superlattices

Hinsche,

Yavorsky,

Gradhand

et al. 2012

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Ab Initio Description of Thermoelectric Properties Based on the Boltzmann Theory

Hinsche

Hölzer

Ernst

et al. 2015

Thermoelectric Bi₂Te₃Nanomaterials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ultrahigh Power Factor and Ultralow Thermal Conductivity at Room Temperature in PbSe/SnSe Superlattice: Role of Quantum‐Well Effect

Zuo-ning

Ning

Jia

et al. 2021

Small

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As experimentally shown by Hicks and Dresselhaus [16] the value of S is about 2.5 times than that of the bulk through quantum confinement effects by using QW structures. In 2007, Ohta et al. [17] observed a large Seebeck coefficient S = 850 µV K −1 in SrTiO 3 (barrier)/ SrTi 0.8 Nb 0.2 O 3 (well)/SrTiO 3 (barrier) multiple QW (MQW). By analyzing the optical spectra, Choi et al. found that the polaron plays an important role in determining the electronic structure in this MQW. [18] Through orbital reconstruction, recently Geisler et al. [19] also obtained large positive S (≈135 µV K −1 ) in LaNiO 3 /SrTiO 3 MQW at room temperature. As a matter of fact, for oxide or semiconductor MQW structure, the carrier electrons should be confined inside of a thin conducting layer. [16,17] There is valid argument for the attention that this will modified the electronic structure near Fermi level through polaron dimensional effect or quantum confinement effect. [18,20] In addition to high S, another strongly desired characteristic for TE materials is electrical and thermal conductivity, which will allow us to explore the high figures of merit. Venkatasubramanian et al. [21] reported that figure of merit can be further increased by controlling the transport of electrons in Bi 2 Te 3 / Sb 2 Te 3 superlattices. In addition, recently theoretical analyses for WS 2 /WSe 2 suplattices suggest that the ZT values can be enhanced by optimal the thermal conductivity. [22,23] However, for the earlier work of the semiconductor QW structure, the band offset is small and which most likely minimal the anisotropy between in-plane and out-of-plane electrical conductivities. [21,[24][25][26] Under this circumstance, due to the electron tunneling and thermal currents between the layers with these infinite potential barriers heights, the enhancement of the ZT values are rather moderate. On the other hand, for the oxide QW, although the tunneling effect are disappeared, but the thermal conductivity are 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than the semiconductor, [27,28] which limits their application in thermoelectric device.In this paper, we select the PbSe and SnSe as the constituent materials for the MQW structure to enhance Seebeck coefficient and optimal thermoelectric properties. PbSe has excellent thermoelectric properties in the mid-temperature region, along with low lattice thermal conductivity and small forbidden band width (≈0.28 eV). In this heterojunction system, SnSe was chosen as the potential barrier layer because on the one Reduced dimension is one of the effective strategies to modulate thermoelectric properties. In this work, n-type PbSe/SnSe superlattices with quantum-well (QW) structure are fabricated by pulsed laser deposition. Here, it is demonstrated that the PbSe/SnSe multiple QW (MQW) shows a high power factor of ≈25.7 µW cm −1 K −2 at 300 K, four times larger than that of PbSe single layers. In addition, thermal conductivity falls below 0.32 ± 0.06 W m −1 K −1 due to the phonon scattering at interface when the PbSe well thickness...

show abstract

Superlattices in thermoelectric applications

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

Thermoelectric transport in $\text{Bi}_2\text{Te}_3/\text{Sb}_2\text{Te}_3$ superlattices

Thermoelectric transport in $\text{Bi}_2\text{Te}_3/\text{Sb}_2\text{Te}_3$ superlattices

Ab Initio Description of Thermoelectric Properties Based on the Boltzmann Theory

Ultrahigh Power Factor and Ultralow Thermal Conductivity at Room Temperature in PbSe/SnSe Superlattice: Role of Quantum‐Well Effect

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About