Proceedings of nanoGe Spring Meeting 2022 (NSM22)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nsm.2022.162
Publication date: 7th February 2022
The conversion of thermal energy to electricity and vice versa through solid-state thermoelectric devices is extremely appealing for many applications. Greater than 60% of all the energy produced is lost as waste heat. However, thermoelectric materials have high production costs and low efficiency, limiting their use to niche applications. The problem is that thermoelectric materials require high electrical conductivity (s), high thermopower (S), and low thermal conductivity (k), three strongly counteracting properties.
Thermoelectric materials are often dense, polycrystalline inorganic semiconductors. Solution synthesis of nanoparticles emerged as an alternative to prepare thermoelectric materials with less demanding processing conditions than conventional solid-state synthetic methods. Moreover, it provides opportunities to synthesize nanoparticles with well-defined structures (size, shape, composition, and crystal structure), offering a broad range of tunable properties to target the desired polycrystalline material.
One of the most remarkable properties of a polycrystalline material, especially if the crystal domains go down to the nanoscale, is the high density of grain boundaries/interfaces and related defects. Such structural properties determine the material transport properties and, therefore, the thermoelectric performance. However, defect engineering in polycrystalline materials suffers the loss of control by the tendency of the crystals to grow and defects to annihilate, especially during high-temperature processes and operations. This limitation is particularly concerning for the bottom-up engineering of nanostructured thermoelectric materials. To date, very little attention has been paid to the grain growth of the original nanostructured powder during thermal processing or even during operation.
The work presented here report two important advances [1]:
- Crystalline grain growth inhibition in nanocomposites at high processing and operating temperatures obtained through a particle surface treatment.
- Scalable, simple, and economical method to produce high-performance polycrystalline thermoelectric materials through defect engineering.
Werner Siemens Foundation
European Union’s Horizon 2020
FWF “Lise Meitner Fellowship”
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