Recently, a team from the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) showed a way to achieve High Thermoelectric Properties in N-type Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3(BTS).

 
After incorporating nanometer sized particles of 3D topological insulator Bi₂Se₃(BS) in BTS, researchers found that this was a new alloy which could not only boost power factor remarkably, but also lower lattice thermal conductivity significantly.

 
As a result, this BTS based composite system offered better result of high Figure of merit (ZT), which was a crucial factor in Thermoelectric (TE) devices.

 
TE devices offer an alternative renewable energy resource to alleviate increasing global energy demands and environmental concerns. Currently, N-type BTS is used in both refrigeration and power generation application at/near room temperatures. But the low ZT for BTS poses a foremost barrier in elevation of energy harvesting applications.

 
Thus, it is foremost needed to find a strategy to improve power factor (PF) in addition to lowering thermal conductivity and this research offers a new approach to enhance both PF and phonon blocking for BTS simultaneously so as to boost its ZT significantly.

Link to the paper: Enhanced power factor and thermoelectric performance for n-type Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 based composites incorporated with 3D topological insulator nanoinclusions

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Figure 1. TEM micrographs for composite specimen fBi₂Se₃/Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 with f =0.3vol%. (image by Bushra Jabar)

Figure 2. Temperature dependence of κL (a), ZT (b) for all fBi₂Se₃/Bi₂Te_2.7Se_0.3 (f= 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.8 vol.%) specimens; temperature dependence of Power factor (c) and ZT values (d). (image by Bushra Jabar)

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Contact:

ZHAO Weiwei
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (http://english.hf.cas.cn/)
Email: annyzhao@ipp.ac.cn