Phys.org May 16, 2024 Electronic band convergence can have a beneficial impact on thermoelectric performance, but finding the right band-converged compositions is still time-consuming. A team of researchers in the US (University of Houston, Rice University) proposed a method for designing a series of compositions with simultaneous band convergence in the high-entropy YbxCa1−xMgyZn2−ySb2 material by zeroing the weighted sum of crystal-field splitting energies of the parent compounds. They found that such compositions have both larger power factors and lower thermal conductivities and that one of them exhibited a large thermoelectric figure of merit value in comparison with to other p-type […]
Tag Archives: Thermoelectric materials
Researchers demonstrate novel way to convert heat to electricity
Nanowerk May 19, 2023 To compete with conventional energy-conversion technologies, a thermoelectric material must possess the mutually exclusive properties of both an electrical conductor and a thermal insulator. Recent theoretical investigations on sub-device scales have revealed that nanopillars attached to a membrane exhibit a multitude of local phonon resonances, spanning the full spectrum, that couple with the heat-carrying phonons in the membrane and cause a reduction in the in-plane thermal conductivity, with no expected change in the electrical properties because the nanopillars are outside the pathway of voltage generation and charge transport. A team of researchers in the US (NIST, […]