Pseudo-Superlattices of Bi2Te3 Topological Insulator Films with Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance

2011 ◽  
Vol 1344 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Goyal ◽  
D Teweldebrhan ◽  
A.A. Balandin

ABSTRACTIt was recently suggested theoretically that atomically thin films of Bi2Te3 topological insulators have strongly enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit. We used the “graphene-like” exfoliation process to obtain Bi2Te3 thin films. The films were stacked and subjected to thermal treatment to fabricate pseudo-superlattices of single crystal Bi2Te3 films. Thermal conductivity of these structures was measured by the “hot disk” and “laser flash” techniques. The room temperature in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivity of the stacks decreased by a factor of ∼2.4 and 3.5 respectively as compared to that of bulk. The strong decrease of thermal conductivity with preserved electrical properties translates to ∼140-250% increase in the thermoelectric figure if merit. It is expected that the film thinning to few-quintuples, and tuning of the Fermi level can lead to the topological insulator surface transport regime with the theoretically predicted extraordinary thermoelectric efficiency.

2003 ◽  
Vol 793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Amagai ◽  
A. Yamamoto ◽  
C. H. Lee ◽  
H. Takazawa ◽  
T. Noguchi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTWe report transport properties of polycrystalline TMGa3(TM = Fe and Ru) compounds in the temperature range 313K<T<973K. These compounds exhibit semiconductorlike behavior with relatively high Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, and Hall carrier concentrations at room temperature in the range of 1017- 1018cm−3. Seebeck coefficient measurements reveal that FeGa3isn-type material, while the Seebeck coefficient of RuGa3changes signs rapidly from large positive values to large negative values around 450K. The thermal conductivity of these compounds is estimated to be 3.5Wm−1K−1at room temperature and decreased to 2.5Wm−1K−1for FeGa3and 2.0Wm−1K−1for RuGa3at high temperature. The resulting thermoelectric figure of merit,ZT, at 945K for RuGa3reaches 0.18.


Author(s):  
А.А. Шабалдин ◽  
П.П. Константинов ◽  
Д.А. Курдюков ◽  
Л.Н. Лукьянова ◽  
А.Ю. Самунин ◽  
...  

AbstractNanocomposite thermoelectrics based on Bi_0.45Sb_1.55Te_2.985 solid solution of p -type conductivity are fabricated by the hot pressing of nanopowders of this solid solution with the addition of SiO_2 microparticles. Investigations of the thermoelectric properties show that the thermoelectric power of the nanocomposites increases in a wide temperature range of 80–420 K, while the thermal conductivity considerably decreases at 80–320 K, which, despite a decrease in the electrical conductivity, leads to an increase in the thermoelectric efficiency in the nanostructured material without the SiO_2 addition by almost 50% (at 300 K). When adding SiO_2, the efficiency decreases. The initial thermoelectric fabricated without nanostructuring, in which the maximal thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = 1 at 390 K, is most efficient at temperatures above 350 K.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adul Harnwunggmoung ◽  
Ken Kurosaki ◽  
Hiroaki Muta ◽  
Shinsuke Yamanaka

AbstractCoSb3 is known as a skutterudite compound that could exhibit high thermoelectric figure of merit. However, the thermal conductivity of CoSb3 is relatively high. In order to enhance the thermoelectric performance of this compound, we tried to reduce the thermal conductivity of CoSb3 by substitution of Rh for Co and by Tl-filling into the voids. The polycrystalline samples of (Co,Rh)Sb3 and Tl-filled CoSb3 were prepared and the thermoelectric properties such as the Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, and thermal conductivity were measured in the temperature range from room temperature to 750 K. The Rh substitution for Co reduced the lattice thermal conductivity, due to the alloy scattering effect. The minimum value of the lattice thermal conductivity was 4 Wm-1K-1 at 750 K obtained for (Co0.7Rh0.3)Sb3. Also the lattice thermal conductivity rapidly decreased with increasing the Tl-filling ratio. T10.25Co4Sb12 exhibited the best ZT values; the maximum ZT was 0.9 obtained at 600 K.


Author(s):  
D. P. Sellan ◽  
C. H. Amon

The phonon Boltzmann transport equation model is used to evaluate the reduction of out-of-plane thermal conductivity and subsequent increase in thermoelectric figure of merit when an angular interface is patterned between a germanium thin-film and silicon substrate. According to the acoustic mismatch model, the angular structure reduces the out-of-plane thermal conductivity by spatially redistributing phonons traveling in the out-of-plane direction. Simulation results demonstrate a 43% reduction in out-of-plane thermal conductivity when operating in the fully ballistic regime. This decrease in phononic thermal conductivity would result in an increase of intrinsic thermoelectric efficiency by a factor of 1.75.


2013 ◽  
Vol 665 ◽  
pp. 179-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anup V. Sanchela ◽  
Varun Kushwaha ◽  
Ajay. D. Thakur ◽  
C.V. Tomy

FeSb2 was recently found to be a narrow-gap semiconductor with strong electronelectron correlation and a large thermopower at low temperatures. We report measurements of the electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient and thermal conductivity between 5 K to 300 K on polycrystalline samples of FeSb2 and FeSb1.9. We found that the deficiency of Sb in the parent compound leads to a giant anomalous peak in thermopower (S) at low temperatures, reaching ~ 426 μV/K at 20 K, resulting in a high thermoelectric power factor at low temperatures, achieving 10 μW/K2m at 27 K.. Consequently, a significantly enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit ZT ~ 0.0015 is achieved near room temperature. At low temperatures there is no improvement in ZT values due to the high thermal conductivity (phonon dominant region). Keywords: Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, resistivity, thermoelectric figure of merit. PACS: 72.20.Pa, 71.27.+a, 71.28.+d


1967 ◽  
Vol 45 (11) ◽  
pp. 3611-3626 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Champness ◽  
W. B. Muir ◽  
P. T. Chiang

Room temperature measurements of the Seebeck coefficient (α), electrical conductivity (σ), thermal conductivity (κ), and thermoelectric figure of merit (Z) were made on samples of n-type Bi2Te3–Bi2Se3 pseudobinary alloys over the whole composition range. To obtain maximum Z, doping was carried out at each composition by the addition of CuBr (donor) from 0 to 66 mole% Bi2Se3 and by lead and excess Se (acceptors) thereafter. Experimentally determined values of the materials parameter β were found to saturate (β∞) at high conductivity in a given alloy and close relationship was found between β∞ and Zmax The optimized values of σ, κ, and CuBr-dopant concentration were found to show a maximum at 33 mole% Bi2Se3, while the optimized value of α showed a minimum at this composition. These results, together with the fact that no maximum was observed in σ at constant α (i.e., constant carrier concentration), suggest that a maximum in the carrier concentration occurs in optimized material at this composition. Further support for this was provided by the observed variation of σ with α at a given composition which was found to be more consistent with a minimum in the apparent energy gap near 33% Bi2Se3 rather than the maximum reported by other workers.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumithra Santhanam ◽  
Nathan J. Takas ◽  
Dinesh Misra ◽  
Pierre F. P. Poudeu ◽  
Kevin L. Stokes

AbstractRecent experimental and theoretical studies have shown that the thermal to electrical power conversion efficiency (as measured by the thermoelectric figure of merit) can be enhanced in nanocomposite materials. Primarily, these efforts to improve the thermoelectric efficiency rely on reducing the lattice thermal conductivity through nanostructuring of the materials or the introduction of a second nanometer-scale phase into the composite material. Here, we show that the inclusion of semimetal nanoparticles into bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) can result in both an increase in the electronic transport properties (so called "power factor") as well as a decrease in lattice thermal conductivity. The effect of different volume fractions of Bi nanoinclusions (3% and 5%) on the thermal and electrical properties of the composite are reported. A marginal increase in the thermoelectric figure of merit is achieved for 3% metal nanoinclusion, whereas a significant improvement in the figure of merit could be achieved for 5% nanoinclusions in the Bi2Te3 thermoelectric matrix.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ferrando-Villalba ◽  
Antonio Pablo Pérez-Marín ◽  
Llibertat Abad ◽  
Gustavo Gonçalves Dalkiranis ◽  
Aitor F. Lopeandia ◽  
...  

Thermoelectricity (TE) is proving to be a promising way to harvest energy for small applications and to produce a new range of thermal sensors. Recently, several thermoelectric generators (TEGs) based on nanomaterials have been developed, outperforming the efficiencies of many previous bulk generators. Here, we presented the thermoelectric characterization at different temperatures (from 50 to 350 K) of the Si thin-film based on Phosphorous (n) and Boron (p) doped thermocouples that conform to a planar micro TEG. The thermocouples were defined through selective doping by ion implantation, using boron and phosphorous, on a 100 nm thin Si film. The thermal conductivity, the Seebeck coefficient, and the electrical resistivity of each Si thermocouple was experimentally determined using the in-built heater/sensor probes and the resulting values were refined with the aid of finite element modeling (FEM). The results showed a thermoelectric figure of merit for the Si thin films of z T = 0.0093, at room temperature, which was about 12% higher than the bulk Si. In addition, we tested the thermoelectric performance of the TEG by measuring its own figure of merit, yielding a result of ZT = 0.0046 at room temperature.


2005 ◽  
Vol 886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinsuke Yamanaka ◽  
Ken Kurosaki ◽  
Atsuko Kosuga ◽  
Keita Goto ◽  
Hiroaki Muta

ABSTRACTWe have prepared polycrystalline bulk samples of various thallium compounds and measured their thermoelectric properties. The most remarkable point of the thermoelectric properties of the thallium compounds is the extremely low thermal conductivity. The state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials such as Bi2Te3 and TAGS materials indicate relatively low the thermal conductivity, around 1.5 W/m/K. However, the thermal conductivity of the thallium compounds is below 0.5 W/m/K; especially that of silver thallium tellurides is around 0.25 W/m/K at room temperature. This extremely low thermal conductivity leads a great advantage for an enhancement of the thermoelectric performance. In this paper, we report on the properties of some thallium compounds selected for study as novel thermoelectric materials. One of these compounds seems to have a thermoelectric figure of merit comparable to those of state-of-the-art materials.


2000 ◽  
Vol 626 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. T. Littleton ◽  
Terry M. Tritt ◽  
B. Zawilski ◽  
J. W. Kolis ◽  
D. R. Ketchum ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT = α2σT/λ, has been measured for pentatelluride single crystals of HfTe5, ZrTe5, as well as Se substituted pentatellurides. The parent materials, HfTe5 and ZrTe5, exhibit relatively large p- and n- type thermopower, |a| > 125 μV/K, and low resistivity, ρ ≤ 1 mΩ•cm. These values lead to a large power factor (α2σT) which is substantially increased with proper Se substitution on the Te sites. The thermal conductivity of these needle-like crystals has also been measured as a function of temperature from 10 K ≤ T ≤ 300 K. The room temperature figure of merit for these materials varies from ZT “0.1 for the parent materials to ZT ≈ 0.25 for Se substituted samples. These results as well as experimental procedures will be presented and discussed.


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