High thermoelectric power factor in two-dimensional crystals of
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Agency for Science Technology and Research (Singapore). Inst. of Materials Research and Engineering
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
The quest for high-efficiency heat-to-electricity conversion has been one of the major driving forces toward renewable energy production for the future. Efficient thermoelectric devices require high voltage generation from a temperature gradient and a large electrical conductivity while maintaining a low thermal conductivity. For a given thermal conductivity and temperature, the thermoelectric power factor is determined by the electronic structure of the material. Low dimensionality (1D and 2D) opens new routes to a high power factor due to the unique density of states (DOS) of confined electrons and holes. The 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors represent a new class of thermoelectric materials not only due to such confinement effects but especially due to their large effective masses and valley degeneracies. Here, we report a power factor of MoS2 as large as 8.5 mW m–1 K–2 at room temperature, which is among the highest measured in traditional, gapped thermoelectric materials. To obtain these high power factors, we perform thermoelectric measurements on few-layer MoS2 in the metallic regime, which allows us to access the 2D DOS near the conduction band edge and exploit the effect of 2D confinement on electron scattering rates, resulting in a large Seebeck coefficient. We conclude the demonstrated high, electronically modulated power factor in 2D TMDCs holds promise for efficient thermoelectric energy conversion.
- Research Organization:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) (Singapore)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001293; AC02-05CH11231; DMR-1508412; 152-72-00018
- OSTI ID:
- 1388292
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1345686
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 11; Related Information: LMI partners with California Institute of Technology (lead); Harvard University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; ISSN 2469-9950
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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