Journal ArticleDOI
Ultralow thermal conductivity and high thermoelectric figure of merit in SnSe crystals
Li-Dong Zhao,Shih Han Lo,Yongsheng Zhang,Hui Sun,Gangjian Tan,Ctirad Uher,Chris Wolverton,Vinayak P. Dravid,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis +8 more
TLDR
An unprecedented ZT of 2.6 ± 0.3 at 923 K is reported in SnSe single crystals measured along the b axis of the room-temperature orthorhombic unit cell, which highlights alternative strategies to nanostructuring for achieving high thermoelectric performance.Abstract:
The thermoelectric effect enables direct and reversible conversion between thermal and electrical energy, and provides a viable route for power generation from waste heat The efficiency of thermoelectric materials is dictated by the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT (where Z is the figure of merit and T is absolute temperature), which governs the Carnot efficiency for heat conversion Enhancements above the generally high threshold value of 25 have important implications for commercial deployment, especially for compounds free of Pb and Te Here we report an unprecedented ZT of 26 ± 03 at 923 K, realized in SnSe single crystals measured along the b axis of the room-temperature orthorhombic unit cell This material also shows a high ZT of 23 ± 03 along the c axis but a significantly reduced ZT of 08 ± 02 along the a axis We attribute the remarkably high ZT along the b axis to the intrinsically ultralow lattice thermal conductivity in SnSe The layered structure of SnSe derives from a distorted rock-salt structure, and features anomalously high Gruneisen parameters, which reflect the anharmonic and anisotropic bonding We attribute the exceptionally low lattice thermal conductivity (023 ± 003 W m(-1) K(-1) at 973 K) in SnSe to the anharmonicity These findings highlight alternative strategies to nanostructuring for achieving high thermoelectric performanceread more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Extraordinary role of Hg in enhancing the thermoelectric performance of p-type SnTe
Gangjian Tan,Fengyuan Shi,Jeff W. Doak,Hui Sun,Li-Dong Zhao,Pengli Wang,Ctirad Uher,Chris Wolverton,Vinayak P. Dravid,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, several synergistic effects in Hg alloying of SnTe to enhance the power factor and overall figure of merit ZT were reported, leading to high ZT of ∼1.35 at 910 K for 2% Bi-doped SnTe with 3% HgTe.
Journal ArticleDOI
An electrochemical system for efficiently harvesting low-grade heat energy
TL;DR: An electrochemical system using a copper hexacyanoferrate cathode and a Cu/Cu(2+) anode to convert heat into electricity, which has low polarization, high charge capacity, moderate temperature coefficients and low specific heat opens a promising way to utilize low-grade heat.
Journal ArticleDOI
Thermoelectrics: From history, a window to the future
Davide Beretta,Davide Beretta,Neophytos Neophytou,James M. Hodges,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis,Dario Narducci,Marisol Martin Gonzalez,Matt Beekman,Benjamin Balke,Giacomo Cerretti,Wolfgang Tremel,Alexandra Zevalkink,Anna I. Hofmann,Christian Müller,Bernhard Dörling,Mariano Campoy-Quiles,Mario Caironi +16 more
TL;DR: A broad review of thermoelectric materials can be found in this article, where the authors discuss the major steps in the history of thermophysics, from the very early discovery to present technology.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessment of the thermoelectric performance of polycrystalline p-type SnSe
S. Sassi,Christophe Candolfi,Jean-Baptiste Vaney,V. Ohorodniichuk,Philippe Masschelein,Anne Dauscher,Bertrand Lenoir +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluated the thermoelectric performance of polycrystalline p-type SnSe, a material in which unprecedented values of the thermoclectric figure of merit ZT have been recently discovered in single crystals.
Journal ArticleDOI
Emerging Applications of Elemental 2D Materials
Nicholas R. Glavin,Rahul Rao,Rahul Rao,Vikas Varshney,Elisabeth Bianco,Amey Apte,Ajit K. Roy,Emilie Ringe,Emilie Ringe,Pulickel M. Ajayan +9 more
TL;DR: A complete review of emerging applications in electronics, sensing, spintronics, plasmonics, photodetectors, ultrafast lasers, batteries, supercapacitors, and thermoelectrics is presented by application type, including detailed descriptions of how the material properties may be tailored toward each specific application.
References
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Hendrik J. Monkhorst,J.D. Pack +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a method for generating sets of special points in the Brillouin zone which provides an efficient means of integrating periodic functions of the wave vector is given, where the integration can be over the entire zone or over specified portions thereof.
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Complex thermoelectric materials.
TL;DR: A new era of complex thermoelectric materials is approaching because of modern synthesis and characterization techniques, particularly for nanoscale materials, and the strategies used to improve the thermopower and reduce the thermal conductivity are reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures
Kanishka Biswas,Jiaqing He,Ivan Blum,Ivan Blum,Chun I. Wu,Timothy P. Hogan,Timothy P. Hogan,David N. Seidman,Vinayak P. Dravid,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis,Mercouri G. Kanatzidis +10 more
TL;DR: It is shown that heat-carrying phonons with long mean free paths can be scattered by controlling and fine-tuning the mesoscale architecture of nanostructured thermoelectric materials, and an increase in ZT beyond the threshold of 2 highlights the role of, and need for, multiscale hierarchical architecture in controlling phonon scattering in bulk thermoeLECTrics.