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Effectiveness of nanoinclusions for reducing bipolar effects in thermoelectric materials

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Foster, Samuel and Neophytou, Neophytos (2019) Effectiveness of nanoinclusions for reducing bipolar effects in thermoelectric materials. Computational Materials Science, 164 . pp. 91-98. doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2019.04.005 ISSN 0927-0256.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2019.04.005

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Abstract

Bipolar carrier transport is often a limiting factor in the thermoelectric efficiency of narrow bandgap materials (such as Bi2Te3 and PbTe) at high temperatures due to the introduction of an additional term to the thermal conductivity and a reduction in the Seebeck coefficient. In this work, we present a theoretical investigation into the ability of nanoinclusions to reduce the detrimental effect of bipolar transport. Using the quantum mechanical non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) transport formalism, we simulate electronic transport through two-dimensional systems containing densely packed nanoinclusions, separated by distances similar to the electron mean-free-path. Specifically, considering an n-type material, where the bipolar effect comes from the valence band, we insert nanoinclusions that impose potential barriers only for the minority holes. We then extract the material’s electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and electronic thermal conductivity including its bipolar contribution. We show that nanoinclusions can indeed have some success in reducing the minority carrier transport and the bipolar effect on both the electronic thermal conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient. The benefits from reducing the bipolar conductivity are larger the more conductive the minority band is to begin with (larger hole mean-free-path in particular), as expected. Interestingly, however, the benefits on the Seebeck coefficient and the power factor are even more pronounced not only when the minority mean-free-path is large, but when it is larger compared to the majority conduction band mean-free-path. Finally, we extract an overall estimate for the benefits that nanoinclusions can have on the ZT figure of merit.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
Divisions: Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Engineering > Engineering
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Thermoelectric materials -- Thermal conductivity
Journal or Publication Title: Computational Materials Science
Publisher: Elsevier Science BV
ISSN: 0927-0256
Official Date: 15 June 2019
Dates:
DateEvent
15 June 2019Published
10 April 2019Available
4 April 2019Accepted
Volume: 164
Page Range: pp. 91-98
DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2019.04.005
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
Date of first compliant deposit: 11 April 2019
Date of first compliant Open Access: 10 April 2020
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:
Project/Grant IDRIOXX Funder NameFunder ID
678763 H2020 European Research Councilhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010663

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