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Perspectives on thermoelectrics: from fundamentals to device applications

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TLDR
In this article, Minnich et al. reviewed the progress made in thermoelectrics over the past two years on charge and heat carrier transport, strategies to improve the thermiolectric figure of merit, with new discussions on device physics and applications.
Abstract
This review is an update of a previous review (A. J. Minnich, et al., Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 466) published two years ago by some of the co-authors, focusing on progress made in thermoelectrics over the past two years on charge and heat carrier transport, strategies to improve the thermoelectric figure of merit, with new discussions on device physics and applications, and assessing challenges on these topics. Understanding of phonon transport in bulk materials has advanced significantly as the first-principles calculations are applied to thermoelectric materials, and experimental tools are being developed. Some new strategies have been developed to improve electron transport in thermoelectric materials. Fundamental questions on phonon and electron transport across interfaces and in thermoelectric materials remain. With thermoelectric materials reaching high ZT values well above one, the field is ready to take a step forward and go beyond the materials' figure of merit. Developing device contacts and module fabrication techniques, developing a platform for efficiency measurements, and identifying applications are becoming increasingly important for the future of thermoelectrics.

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ShengBTE: A solver of the Boltzmann transport equation for phonons ☆

TL;DR: ShengBTE is a software package for computing the lattice thermal conductivity of crystalline bulk materials and nanowires with diffusive boundary conditions based on a full iterative solution to the Boltzmann transport equation.
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Advances in thermoelectric materials research: Looking back and moving forward

TL;DR: The mechanisms and strategies for improving thermoelectric efficiency are reviewed and how to report material performance is discussed, as well as how to develop high-performance materials out of nontoxic and earth-abundant elements.
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Band Engineering of Thermoelectric Materials

TL;DR: This Review focuses on manipulation of the electronic and atomic structural features which makes up the thermoelectric quality factor, and the principles used are equally applicable to most good thermoeLECTric materials that could enable improvement of thermoelectedric devices from niche applications into the mainstream of energy technologies.
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Compromise and Synergy in High-Efficiency Thermoelectric Materials.

TL;DR: Novel concepts and paradigms are described here that have emerged, targeting superior TE materials and higher TE performance, including band convergence, "phonon-glass electron-crystal", multiscale phonon scattering, resonant states, anharmonicity, etc.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential

TL;DR: In this paper, a new hybrid density functional based on a screened Coulomb potential for the exchange interaction is proposed, which enables fast and accurate hybrid calculations, even of usually difficult metallic systems.
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Statistical-Mechanical Theory of Irreversible Processes : I. General Theory and Simple Applications to Magnetic and Conduction Problems

TL;DR: In this paper, a general type of fluctuation-dissipation theorem is discussed to show that the physical quantities such as complex susceptibility of magnetic or electric polarization and complex conductivity for electric conduction are rigorously expressed in terms of timefluctuation of dynamical variables associated with such irreversible processes.
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Band theory and Mott insulators: Hubbard U instead of Stoner I.

TL;DR: A form for the exchange-correlation potential in local-density band theory, appropriate for Mott insulators, and finds that all late-3d-transition-metal monoxides, as well as the parent compounds of the high-${\mathit{T}$ compounds, are large-gap magnetic insulators of the charge-transfer type.
Book

Electronic transport in mesoscopic systems

TL;DR: In this article, preliminary concepts of conductance from transmission, S-matrix and Green's function formalism are discussed. And double-barrier tunnelling is considered.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamical mean-field theory of strongly correlated fermion systems and the limit of infinite dimensions

TL;DR: The dynamical mean field theory of strongly correlated electron systems is based on a mapping of lattice models onto quantum impurity models subject to a self-consistency condition.
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