Enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit through the reduction of bipolar thermal conductivity with heterostructure barriers
- 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.
- 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)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001009
- OSTI ID:
- 1384265
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 105, Issue 5; Related Information: CEEM partners with the University of California, Santa Barbara (lead); Purdue University; Los Alamos National Laboratory; National Renewable Energy Laboratory; ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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