Enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit through the reduction of bipolar thermal conductivity with heterostructure barriers

Bahk, Je-Hyeong; Shakouri, Ali

doi:10.1063/1.4892653

Enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit through the reduction of bipolar thermal conductivity with heterostructure barriers

Journal Article · Wed Aug 06 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4892653· OSTI ID:1384265

Bahk, Je-Hyeong ^[1]; Shakouri, Ali ^[1]

Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)

In this paper, we present theoretically that the thermoelectric figure of merit for a semiconductor material with a small band gap can be significantly enhanced near the intrinsic doping regime at high temperatures via the suppression of bipolar thermal conductivity when the minority carriers are selectively blocked by heterostructure barriers. This scheme is particularly effective in nanostructured materials where the lattice thermal conductivity is lowered by increased phonon scatterings at the boundaries, so that the electronic thermal conductivity including the bipolar term is limiting the figure of merit $zT$. We show that $zT$ can be enhanced to above 3 for p-type PbTe, and above 2 for n-type PbTe at 900 K with minority carrier blocking, when the lattice thermal conductivity is as low as 0.3 W/m K.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Energy Efficient Materials (CEEM)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0001009

OSTI ID:: 1384265

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 22314490
OSTI ID: 1168211

Journal Information:: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 105; ISSN 0003-6951

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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