Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T22:53:26.114Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thermoelectric power factor in nano- to microscale porous composites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2015

Roland H. Tarkhanyan  and
Dimitris G. Niarchos
Roland H. Tarkhanyan*
Affiliation:
Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Athens 15310, Greece; and Institute of Radiophysics & Electronics, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Ashtarak 0203, Armenia
Dimitris G. Niarchos
Affiliation:
Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Athens 15310, Greece
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The peculiarities of the Seebeck coefficient and power factor are studied in porous thermoelectric materials with spherical hollow pores of varying diameter from nanometer to micrometer length scales. The pores are assumed to be randomly dispersed throughout the matrix material. The influence of trap centers situated at pore interfaces on the power factor is investigated. Using the model based on gamma distribution of the pore sizes, the analytical expression is obtained for the power factor at the arbitrary level of the Fermi energy. Limiting cases of nondegenerate and degenerately doped porous semiconductors are examined as well. The results are compared with calculations for a multilayer composite in which each layer contains pores of a single length-scale. It is shown that the presence of hollow pores with multiscale hierarchical disorder leads to more considerable enhancement in the thermopower over its value in the bulk. Necessary conditions for the enhancement of the power factor are found.

Keywords

thermoelectricityporositysemiconductorrandom distribution
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 30 , Issue 17: Focus Issue: Advances in Thermoelectric Materials II , 14 September 2015 , pp. 2618 - 2627
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Faleev, S.V. and Leonard, F.: Theory of enhancement of thermoelectric properties of materials with nanoinclusions. Phys. Rev. B 77, 214304 (2008).Google Scholar
Lee, J.H., Galli, G.A., and Grossman, J.C.: Nanoporous Si as an efficient thermoelectric material. Nano Lett. 8, 3750 (2008).Google Scholar
Snyder, J.G. and Toberer, E.S.: Complex thermoelectric materials. Nat. Mater. 7, 105–114 (2008).Google Scholar
Lee, H., Vashaee, D., Wang, D.Z., Dresselhaus, M.S., Ren, Z.F., and Chen, G.: Effects of nanoscale porosity on thermoelectric properties of SiGe. J. Appl. Phys. 107, 094308 (2010).Google Scholar
Li, J.F., Liu, W.S., Zhao, L.D., and Zhou, M.: High-performance nanostructured thermoelectric materials. Nat. Asia Mater. 2, 152–158 (2010).Google Scholar
Vineis, C., Shakouri, A., Majumdar, A., and Kanatzidis, M.: Nanostructured thermoelectrics: Big efficiency gains from small features. Adv. Mater. 22, 3970 (2010).Google Scholar
Harman, T.C., Taylor, P.J., Walsh, M.P., and LaForge, B.E.: Quantum dot superlattice thermoelectric materials and devices. Science 297, 2229 (2002).Google Scholar
Biswas, K., He, J., Zhang, Q., Uher, C., Dravid, V., and Kanatzidis, M.G.: Strained endotaxial nanostructures with high thermoelectric figure of merit. Nat. Chem. 3, 160 (2011).Google Scholar
Biswas, K., He, J., Blum, I.D., Wu, C.I., Hogan, T.P., Seidman, D.N., Dravid, V.P., and Kanatzidis, M.G.: High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures. Nature 489, 414 (2012).Google Scholar
He, J., Kanatzidis, M.G., and Dravid, V.P.: High performance bulk thermoelectric via a panoscopic approach. Mater. Today 16, 166–176 (2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fel, L.G., Strelniker, Y.M., and Bergman, D.J.: Enhancement of power factor in a thermoelectric composite with a periodic microstructure. Proceedings MRS Spring Meeting, San Francisco, Vol. 626, Z6.5, April 2000.Google Scholar
Martin, J., Wang, L., Chen, L., and Nolas, G.S.: Enhanced Seebeck coefficient through energy-barrier scattering in PbTe nanocomposites. Phys. Rev. B 79, 115311 (2009).Google Scholar
Huang, H.H., Lu, M.P., Chiu, C.H., Su, L.C., Liao, C.N., Huang, J.Y., and Hsieh, H.L.: Enhanced Seebeck coefficient of bismuth telluride compounds with graded doping. Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 163903 (2013).Google Scholar
Neophytou, N., Zianni, X., Kosina, H., Frabboni, S., Lorenzi, B., and Narducci, D.: Simultaneous increase in electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient in highly boron-doped nanocrystalline Si. Nanotechnology 24, 205402 (2013).Google Scholar
Tarkhanyan, R.H. and Niarchos, D.G.: Effect of pore sizes on the reduction in lattice thermal conductivity of nano to micro scale porous materials. J. Electronic Mater. 43, 3808–3811 (2014).Google Scholar
Tarkhanyan, R.H., Ioannidou, A., and Niarchos, D.G.: Lattice thermal conductivity in nano to micro scale porous materials. Metall. Mater. Trans. E 1, 145–152 (2014).Google Scholar
Tarkhanyan, R.H. and Niarchos, D.G.: Seebeck coefficient of graded porous composites. J. Mater. Res. 28, 2316 (2013).Google Scholar
Jambunathan, M.V.: Some properties of beta and gamma distributions. Ann. Math. Stat. 25, 401–405 (1954).Google Scholar
Ziman, J.M.: Electrons and Phonons (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1960).Google Scholar
Ansel'm, A.I.: Introduction to Semiconductor Theory (Mir, Moscow; Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cilffs, New Jersey, 1981).Google Scholar
Kittel, C.: Introduction to Solid State Physics (Wiley, New York, 1971).Google Scholar
Lundstrom, M.: Fundamentals of Carrier Transport, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000).Google Scholar
Chen, G.: Nanoscale Energy Transport and Conversion (Oxford University Press, NewYork, 2005).Google Scholar
Yu, P.Y. and Cardona, M.: Fundamentals of Semiconductors, 3rd ed. (Springer, Berlin, 2003).Google Scholar
Chen, G., Dresselhaus, M.S., Dresselhaus, G., Fleurial, J.P., and Caillat, T.: Recent developments in thermoelectric materials. Int. Mater. Rev. 48, 45–66 (2003).Google Scholar
Callen, H.B.: Thermodynamics (Wiley & Sons, New York, 1960).Google Scholar
de Groot, S.R. and Mazur, P.: Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics (North-Holland Com., Amsterdam, 1962).Google Scholar