Engineering the Thermoelectric Transport in Half-Heusler Materials through a Bottom-Up Nanostructure Synthesis

Zhao, Huaizhou; Cao, Binglei; Li, Shanming; Liu, Ning; Shen, Jiawen; Li, Shan; Jian, Jikang; Gu, Lin; Pei, Yanzhong; Snyder, Gerald Jeffrey; Ren, Zhifeng; Chen, Xiaolong

doi:10.1002/aenm.201700446

Title: Engineering the Thermoelectric Transport in Half-Heusler Materials through a Bottom-Up Nanostructure Synthesis

Journal Article · Tue May 16 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Advanced Energy Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201700446· OSTI ID:1470530

Zhao, Huaizhou ^[1]; Cao, Binglei ^[2]; Li, Shanming ^[1]; Liu, Ning ^[1]; Shen, Jiawen ^[3]; Li, Shan ^[1]; Jian, Jikang ^[4]; Gu, Lin ^[1]; Pei, Yanzhong ^[3]; Snyder, Gerald Jeffrey ^[5]; Ren, Zhifeng ^[6]; Chen, Xiaolong ^[1]

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 (κ_L) 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 κ_L of ≈1 W m^-1 K^-1 at 900 K and one of the highest ZT (≈1) and predicted η (≈11%) for n-type Hf_0.25Zr_0.75NiSn_0.97Sb_0.03. Further manipulation on the dislocation defects at the grain boundaries of p-type Nb_0.8Ti_0.2FeSb 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 FeNb_0.56V_0.24Ti_0.2Sb significantly promotes the η to ≈11%. This strategy can be extended to a broad range of advanced alloys and compounds for improved properties.

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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

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Cited by: 43 works

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36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
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)
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Title: Engineering the Thermoelectric Transport in Half-Heusler Materials through a Bottom-Up Nanostructure Synthesis

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