Engineering the Thermoelectric Transport in Half-Heusler Materials through a Bottom-Up Nanostructure Synthesis
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Beijing National Lab. for Condensed Matter Physics, Inst. of Physics
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Beijing National Lab. for Condensed Matter Physics, Inst. of Physics; Guangdong Univ. of Technology Guangzhou (China). Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering College
- Tongji Univ., Shanghai (China). School of Materials Science and Engineering
- Guangdong Univ. of Technology Guangzhou (China). Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering College
- Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Univ. of Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics and TcSUH
Half-Heusler (HH) alloys are among the best promising thermoelectric (TE) materials applicable for the middle-to-high temperature power generation. Despite of the large thermoelectric power factor and decent figure-of-merit ZT (≈1), their broad applications and enhancement on TE performance are limited by the high intrinsic lattice thermal conductivity (κL) due to insufficiencies of phonon scattering mechanisms, and the fewer powerful strategies associated with the microstructural engineering for HH materials. This study reports a bottom-up nanostructure synthesis approach for these HH materials based on the displacement reaction between metal chlorides/bromides and magnesium (or lithium), followed by vacuum-assisted spark plasma sintering process. The samples are featured with dense dislocation arrays at the grain boundaries, leading to a minimum κL of ≈1 W m-1 K-1 at 900 K and one of the highest ZT (≈1) and predicted η (≈11%) for n-type Hf0.25Zr0.75NiSn0.97Sb0.03. Further manipulation on the dislocation defects at the grain boundaries of p-type Nb0.8Ti0.2FeSb leads to enhanced maximum power factor of 47 × 10-4 W m-1 K-2 and the predicted η of ≈7.5%. Moreover, vanadium substitution in FeNb0.56V0.24Ti0.2Sb significantly promotes the η to ≈11%. This strategy can be extended to a broad range of advanced alloys and compounds for improved properties.
- Research Organization:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001299; FG02-09ER46577
- OSTI ID:
- 1470530
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1393299
- Journal Information:
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 18; Related Information: S3TEC partners with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (lead); Boston College; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; ISSN 1614-6832
- Publisher:
- WileyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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Related Subjects
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
dislocation synthesis
enhanced TE performance
half‐Heusler thermoelectrics
lattice thermal conductivity
transport properties manipulation
solar (photovoltaic)
solar (thermal)
solid state lighting
phonons
thermal conductivity
thermoelectric
defects
mechanical behavior
charge transport
spin dynamics
materials and chemistry by design
optics
synthesis (novel materials)
synthesis (self-assembly)
synthesis (scalable processing)