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Alternative Strategies for Thermoelectric Materials Development

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New Materials for Thermoelectric Applications: Theory and Experiment

Abstract

The presently used thermoelectric materials, as Bi2Te3-Sb2Te3,PbTe and Si1−xGex,were developed up to the early 1960s. However, they only show a maximum ZT∼1, which leads to device efficiencies that are not big enough to compete, for instance, with the traditional cooling compression systems. The development of the “Phonon Glass and Electron Crystal” (PGEC) concept, in the middle 1990s, led to the discovery of a large number of new and improved thermoelectric materials. Several strategies were used during these years for this research. In this contribution a review on the different approaches for thermoelectric materials identification and development is made. A special focus will be the recent strategies used in our institutes to identify new thermoelectric materials.

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Abbreviations

e::

charge of electron

kB::

Boltzmann’s constant

m::

effective mass

n::

carrier concentration

q::

charge of a carrier

r::

scattering parameter

zT::

material figure of merit

ZT::

device figure of merit

EG::

energy gap

EF::

Fermi energy

I::

electrical current

L0::

Lorentz number

M::

mean atomic weight

PGEC::

Phonon Glass Electron Crystal

Q::

heat quantity

S::

entropy

T::

absolute temperature

TC::

crystallization temperature

Tg::

glass transition temperature

U::

weighted mobility

V::

electrical potential

α ::

Seebeck coefficient

α2σ::

power factor

β ::

material parameter

ε ::

mass fluctuation parameter

η ::

reduced Fermi energy

λ ::

thermal conductivity

λ e ::

electronic contribution to the thermal conductivity

λ L ::

lattice (phonon) contribution to the thermal conductivity

λ min ::

minimum thermal conductivity

μ ::

mobility

ρ ::

electrical resistivity

ρ0::

density

σ ::

electrical conductivity

τg:

Thomson coefficient

Π ::

Peltier coefficient

\(\overline{\Delta X} :\) :

average electronegativity difference

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the by-lateral French-Portuguese GRICES/CNRS 2007–2008 program, European COST P16 program and FCT, Portugal, under contract nr. PTDC/CTM/102766/2008. Authors would like to thank the French National Agency (ANR) in the frame of its program “PROGELEC 2011” (Verre Thermo-Générateur “VTG”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Química, Instituto Tecnológico e Nuclear/CFMC-UL, Estrada Nacional 10, P-2686-953, Sacavém, Portugal

    A. P. Gonçalves

  2. CNRS, ICMPE, CMTR, 2/8 rue Henri Dunant, 94320, Thiais, France

    C. Godart

Authors
  1. A. P. Gonçalves
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  2. C. Godart
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Correspondence to A. P. Gonçalves .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, Bijenicka cesta 46, Zagreb, 10000, Croatia

    Veljko Zlatic

  2. , Department of Mathematics, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom

    Alex Hewson

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Gonçalves, A.P., Godart, C. (2013). Alternative Strategies for Thermoelectric Materials Development. In: Zlatic, V., Hewson, A. (eds) New Materials for Thermoelectric Applications: Theory and Experiment. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4984-9_1

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