Synthesis of Single Crystal Bismuth-Telluride and Lead-Telluride Nanowires for New Thermoelectric Materials

1999 ◽  
Vol 581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Wei ◽  
C.M. Lieber

ABSTRACTDimensionality can play an important role in determining the properties of materials. In the case of thermoelectric materials, it has been proposed that one-dimensional quantum wires, or nanowires, and two-dimensional superlattices could exhibit substantially higher efficiencies compared to the corresponding bulk, three-dimensional solids. To explore such predictions we have initiated a program directed towards the controlled growth of nanowires, and herein, we report the synthesis of single crystal Bi2Te3 and PbTe nanowires by a pulsed laser ablation method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that Bi2Te3 wires 80 nm to 200 nm in diameter and lengths exceeding 10 microns, and PbTe wires 25 nm to 60 nm in diameter and lengths to 2 microns can be readily produced by the laser ablation method. High-resolution TEM and electron diffraction show that Bi2Te3 nanowires are single crystals with wire axes along the <110> crystal direction. TEM and electron diffraction measurements also show that the PbTe nanowires are single crystals with a <100> growth axis. The transport properties of these new nanowire materials will be discussed.

Author(s):  
G. G. Hembree ◽  
M. A. Otooni ◽  
J. M. Cowley

The formation of oxide structures on single crystal films of metals has been investigated using the REMEDIE system (for Reflection Electron Microscopy and Electron Diffraction at Intermediate Energies) (1). Using this instrument scanning images can be obtained with a 5 to 15keV incident electron beam by collecting either secondary or diffracted electrons from the crystal surface (2). It is particularly suited to studies of the present sort where the surface reactions are strongly related to surface morphology and crystal defects and the growth of reaction products is inhomogeneous and not adequately described in terms of a single parameter. Observation of the samples has also been made by reflection electron diffraction, reflection electron microscopy and replication techniques in a JEM-100B electron microscope.A thin single crystal film of copper, epitaxially grown on NaCl of (100) orientation, was repositioned on a large copper single crystal of (111) orientation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (5) ◽  
pp. 443-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Heying ◽  
Jutta Kösters ◽  
Rainer Pöttgen

AbstractRod-shaped single crystals of Sr4Pt10In21were prepared from the elements in glassy-carbon crucibles in a high-frequency furnace. The structure of Sr4Pt10In21was refined from single-crystal X-ray diffractometer data:C2/m, Ho4Ni10Ga21type,a = 2322.62(7),b = 450.27(2),c = 1958.09(7) pm,β = 133.191(3)°,wR = 0.0464, 3200F2values and 107 variables. The three-dimensional [Pt10In21]δ−polyanionic network is stabilized through substantial Pt–In (269–313 pm Pt–In) and In–In (294–362 pm In–In) bonding. All platinum atoms have slightly distorted tri-capped trigonal prismatic coordination and the two crystallographically independent strontium atoms are located in penta-capped pentagonal prisms.


1998 ◽  
Vol 553 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Reich ◽  
M. Conrad ◽  
F. Krumeich ◽  
B. Harbrecht

AbstractThe dodecagonal (dd) quasicrystalline tantalum telluride dd Ta1.6Te and the crystalline approximant Ta97Te60 have been modified by partly replacing tantalum by vanadium. The impact of the substitution on the structures has been studied by X-ray and electron diffraction and by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The layered-type approximant structure of Ta83V14Te60 was determined by single crystal X-ray means. The partitioning of vanadium on 21 out of 29 crystallographically inequivalent metal sites is referred to, but not controlled by the Dirichlet domain volume available at the sites. A HRTEM projection of dd (Ta, V)1.6Te onto the dodecagonal plane is analysed with respect to the arrangement of (Ta, V)151Te74 clusters on the vertices of an irregular aperiodic square-triangle tiling, the edge length of which corresponds to the distance between the centres of two such clusters. The clusters comprise about 1 nm thick corrugated lamellae which are periodically stacked by weak Te-Te interactions.


1996 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 806-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Pöttgen

Abstract EuPdSn and EuPtSn were prepared from the elements in tantalum tubes at 1070 K and investigated by X-ray diffraction on both powder as well as single crystals. They crystallize with the TiNiSi type structure of space group Pnma and with Z = 4 formula units per cell. Both structures were refined from single-crystal diffractometer data: a = 751.24(9), b = 469.15(6), c = 804.31(9) pm, V = 0.2835(1) nm3 for EuPdSn, and a = 753.38(7), b = 467.72(4), c = 793.08(7) pm, V = 0.2795(1) nnr for EuPtSn. The structures consist of three-dimensional [PdSn] and [PtSn] polyanionic networks in which the europium atoms are embedded. The crystal chemistry of these stannides is briefly discussed


2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devinder Singh ◽  
Yifeng Yun ◽  
Wei Wan ◽  
Benjamin Grushko ◽  
Xiaodong Zou ◽  
...  

Electron diffraction is a complementary technique to single-crystal X-ray diffraction and powder X-ray diffraction for structure solution of unknown crystals. Crystals too small to be studied by single-crystal X-ray diffraction or too complex to be solved by powder X-ray diffraction can be studied by electron diffraction. The main drawbacks of electron diffraction have been the difficulties in collecting complete three-dimensional electron diffraction data by conventional electron diffraction methods and the very time-consuming data collection. In addition, the intensities of electron diffraction suffer from dynamical scattering. Recently, a new electron diffraction method, rotation electron diffraction (RED), was developed, which can overcome the drawbacks and reduce dynamical effects. A complete three-dimensional electron diffraction data set can be collected from a sub-micrometre-sized single crystal in less than 2 h. Here the RED method is applied forab initiostructure determination of an unknown complex intermetallic phase, the pseudo-decagonal (PD) quasicrystal approximant Al37.0(Co,Ni)15.5, denoted as PD2. RED shows that the crystal is F-centered, witha= 46.4,b= 64.6,c= 8.2 Å. However, as with other approximants in the PD series, the reflections with oddlindices are much weaker than those withleven, so it was decided to first solve the PD2 structure in the smaller, primitive unit cell. The basic structure of PD2 with unit-cell parametersa= 23.2,b= 32.3,c= 4.1 Å and space groupPnmmhas been solved in the present study. The structure withc= 8.2 Å will be taken up in the near future. The basic structure contains 55 unique atoms (17 Co/Ni and 38 Al) and is one of the most complex structures solved by electron diffraction. PD2 is built of characteristic 2 nm wheel clusters with fivefold rotational symmetry, which agrees with results from high-resolution electron microscopy images. Simulated electron diffraction patterns for the structure model are in good agreement with the experimental electron diffraction patterns obtained by RED.


2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (5) ◽  
pp. 833-844
Author(s):  
Leonid Aslanov ◽  
Valery Zakharov ◽  
Ksenia Paseshnichenko ◽  
Aleksandr Yatsenko ◽  
Andrey Orekhov ◽  
...  

AbstractA new method for synthesis of 2D nanocrystals in water was proposed. The use of perfluorothiophenolate ions as surfactant allowed us to produce 2D single-crystal nanosheets of CaS at pH=9 and flat nanocrystals of PbS at pH=9 at room temperature. Mesocrystalline nanobelts of CdS and mesocrystals of PbS were obtained at pH=3–5 and pH=10–12, respectively. Morphology, structure and chemical composition of nanoparticles were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. A mechanism of nanoparticles formation was discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Ng

<p>Energy consumption worldwide is constantly increasing, bringing with it the demand for low cost, environmentally friendly and efficient energy technologies. One of these promising technologies is thermoelectrics in which electric power is harvested from waste heat energy. The efficiency of a thermoelectric device is determined by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT = σS²T/k where σ is the electrical conductivity, S is the thermopower, k is the thermal conductivity, and T is the average temperature. In this thesis we investigate the use of nanostructuring, which has been known to lead to significant reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity to maximise the figure of merit.  One of the most successful bulk thermoelectric materials is Bi₂Te₃, with a ZT of unity at room temperature. Here we investigate the effects of nanostructuring on the thermoelectric properties of Bi₂Te₃. Sub-100 nm ₂Te₃ nanoparticles were successfully synthesized and the figure of merit was found to be ZT ~ 5X10⁻⁵ at room temperature. The effect of a ligand exchange treatment to replace the long chain organic ligand on the as-synthesized nanoparticles with a short chain alkyl ligand was explored. After ligand exchange treatment with hydrazine the figure of merit of sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃ was found to increase by two fold to ZT ~ 1X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Overall the figure of merit is low compared to other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃, this was attributed to the extremely low electrical conductivity. The thermopower and thermal conductivity were found to be ~96 μVK⁻¹ and ~0.38 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 300 K respectively, which show improvements over other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃.  Further optimisation of the figure of merit was also investigated by incorporating Cu, Ni and Co dopants. The most successful of these attempts was Co in which 14.5% Co relative to Bi was successfully incorporated into sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃. The figure of merit of nanostructured Bi₁.₇₁Co₀.₂₉Te₁.₇₁ alloy was found to increase by 40% to a ZT ~ 1.4X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Although overall the figure of merit is low, the effect of Co alloying and hydrazine treatment shows potential as a route to optimise the figure of merit.  A potential novel material for thermoelectrics applications is inorganicorganic perovskite single crystals. Here we report a synthetic strategy to successfully grow large millimetre scale single crystals of MAPbBr₃₋xClx, FAPbBr₃₋xClx, and MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ (MA = methylammonium and FA = formamidinium) using inverse temperature crystallisation (ITC) in a matter of days. This is the first reported case of mixed Br/Cl single crystals with a FA cation and mixed Pb/Sn based perovskites grown using ITC. The bandgap of these single crystals was successfully tuned by altering the halide and metal site composition. It was found that single crystals of FAPbBr₃₋xClx were prone to surface degradation with increased synthesis time. This surface degradation was observed to be reversible by placing the single crystals in an antisolvent such as chloroform.  A tentative model was proposed to analyse the IV characteristics of the single crystal perovskites in order to extract mobilities and diffusion lengths. The MAPbBr₃ and MAPbBr₂.₅Cl₀.₅ single crystal mobilities were found to be between 30-390 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and 10-100 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ respectively, the diffusion lengths were found to be between 2-8 μm and 1-4 μm respectively. This is an improvement over polycrystalline thin film perovskites and comparable to other single crystal perovskites. The conductance of MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ based perovskites was found to increase by 2 orders of magnitude even with just 1% of Sn incorporated. The thermal conductivity of MAPbBr₃ single crystals was found to be ~1.12 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at room temperature which is reasonable low for single crystals, however no other thermoelectric properties could be measured due to the self cleaving nature of the single crystals with decreasing temperature and the high resistivity of the material.</p>


1985 ◽  
Vol 49 (352) ◽  
pp. 375-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. D. Curtis ◽  
C. R. Hughes ◽  
J. A. Whiteman ◽  
C. K. Whittle

AbstractA range of authigenic sedimentary chlorites from sandstones has been studied by analytical transmission electron microscopy. Selected area (single crystal) electron diffraction patterns are of the Ib (β = 90°) polytype confirming the earlier observations of Hayes (1970).TEM analyses show all samples to be relatively rich in both Al and Fe. In the general formula (Mg,Fe,Al)n [Si8−xAlxO20](OH)16, x varies between 1.5 and 2.6; Fe/(Fe + Mg) between 0.47 and 0.83 and n between 10.80 and 11.54. Octahedral Al is close to 3 in this formulation and Fe2+ predominates over Fe3+. Swelling chlorites have significantly different compositions which are consistent with smectite/chlorite interstratifications.The Ib (β = 90°) polytype appears to be stable under conditions of moderate to deep burial. It replaces berthierine and swelling chlorites formed at lower temperatures. As commonly seen in grain coatings, however, it precipitates from porewater; solutes probably being contributed from several mineral decomposition reactions.


Author(s):  
Frank E. Wawner ◽  
Kenneth R. Lawless

Thin single crystal films of high purity titanium were needed in our laboratory for investigations of the early stages of the oxidation of titanium. Experiments were carried out to determine the feasibility of preparing single crystal titanium films of different orientations by evaporation onto the (100), (110) and (111) surfaces of rocksalt. The structures of these films were investigated by transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction.


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