Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T19:09:33.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Use of Quantum-Well Superlattices to Increase the Thermoelectric Figure of Merit: Transport and Optical Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2011

L. D. Hicks ,
X. X. Bi  and
M. S. Dresselhaus
L. D. Hicks
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
X. X. Bi
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
M. S. Dresselhaus
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Get access

Abstract

The thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of a material is a measure the usefulness of the material in a thermoelectric device. Presently, the materials with the highest ZT are Bi2Te3 alloys, with ZT ≃ 1. There has been little improvement in ZT for over 30 years. So far, all the materials used in thermoelectric applications have been in bulk form. Recently, however, calculations have shown that it may be possible to increase ZT of some materials through the use of quantum-well superlattices. We have made preliminary measurements on the Bi/PbTe superlattice system using transport and optical techniques to determine whether it is possible to achieve such an increase in ZT.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 358: Symposium F – Microcrystalline and Nanocrystalline Semiconductors , 1994 , 1035
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1995

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

1 Goldsmid, H. J., Thermoelectric Refrigeration (Plenum, New York, 1964).Google Scholar
2 Goldsmid, H. J., Electronic Refrigeration (Pion, London, 1986), p. 2.Google Scholar
3 Hicks, L. D. and Dresselhaus, M. S., Phys. Rev. B 47, 12727 (1993).Google Scholar
4 Hicks, L. D., Harman, T. C. and Dresselhaus, M. S., Appl. Phys. Lett. 63, 3230 (1993).Google Scholar
5 Gallo, C. F., Chandrasekhar, B. S., and Sutter, P. H., J. Appl. Phys. 34, 144 (1963).Google Scholar
6 Schulman, J. N. and McGill, T. C., in Synthetic Modulated Structures, edited by Chang, L. L. and Giessen, B. C. (Academic, Orlando, 1985), pp. 96–98.Google Scholar
7 Sung-Chul, Shin, Ketterson, J. B., and Hilliard, J. E., Phys. Rev. B 30, 4099 (1984).Google Scholar
8 Harman, T. C. (private communication).Google Scholar
9 Reik, H. G. and Heese, D., J. Phys. Chem. Solids 28, 581 (1967).Google Scholar
10 Reik, H. G., in Polarons in Ionic Crystals and Polar Semiconductors, edited by Devreese, J. (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 679–714.Google Scholar
11 Bogomolov, V. N. and Mirlin, D. N., Phys. Stat. Sol. 27, 443 (1968).Google Scholar
12 Bogomolov, V. N., Kudinov, E. K., Mirlin, D. N., and Firsov, Y. A., Soviet Physics-Solid State, 9, 1630 (1968).Google Scholar