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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2021) | Viewed by 10783

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Prof. Dr. Jong-Soo Rhyee

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Guest Editor

Dept. of Applied Physics, College of Applied Sciences, Kyung Hee University, 1732 Deogyeong-daero, Gihung-gu, Yong-In 17104, Korea
Interests: thermoelectric; nano composites; band structure; ZT; figure-of-merit; phonon scattering; electronic transport; thermal transport

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent global energy and environmental issues attract much attention on energy harvesting and waste heat power generation. Thermoelectricity is a key technology to convert waste heat into electricity, or vice versa. There have been much effort to enhance thermoelectric performance in terms of synthesizing nano bulk composites and new materials design by employing novel concepts. Besides, the device design and fabrication are very important to realize the efficient thermoelectric module. The special issue on the “Materials” journal deals with various thermoelectric investigations including the novel materials design with theoretical investigation, band structure engineering, control of phonon transport, bulk composite, nano materials synthesis, electronic and thermal transport phenomena, but it is not restricted on this topic. Various approaches on the enhancement of thermoelectric materials’ figure-of-merit and device performance will come close to apply this technology in various fields of research such as commercial home and industrial appliances, aerospace and military applications, and energy efficient vehicles so that it can partially resolve the current global energy and environment crisis.

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, short communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Prof. Jong-Soo Rhyee
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

Thermoelectric
Nano composites
Band structure
ZT
figure-of-merit
Phonon scattering
Electronic transport
Thermal transport

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 4134 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of the Interface between Inorganic and Organic Components in a Bi₂Te₃–Polypyrrole Bulk Composite on Its Thermoelectric Performance

by Cham Kim and David Humberto Lopez

Materials 2021, 14(11), 3080; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14113080 - 4 Jun 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2232

Abstract

We provided a method to hybridize Bi₂Te₃ with polypyrrole, thus forming an inorganic/organic bulk composite (Bi₂Te₃–polypyrrole), in which the effects of energy band junction and phonon scattering were expected to occur at the interface of the two components. Bi₂Te₃–polypyrrole exhibited a considerably high Seebeck coefficient compared to pristine Bi₂Te₃, and thus it recorded a somewhat increased power factor despite the loss in electrical conductivity caused by the organic component, polypyrrole. Bi₂Te₃–polypyrrole also exhibited much lower thermal conductivity than pristine Bi₂Te₃ because of the phonon scattering effect at the interface. We successfully brought about the decoupling phenomenon of electrical and thermal properties by devising an inorganic/organic composite and adjusting its fabrication condition, thereby optimizing its thermoelectric performance, which is considered the predominant property for n-type binary Bi₂Te₃ reported so far. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Thermoelectric Materials and Device Design Concepts)

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9 pages, 5615 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of Powder Heat Treatment on Chemical Composition and Thermoelectric Properties of Bismuth Antimony Telluride Alloys Fabricated by Combining Water Atomization and Spark Plasma Sintering

by Dong-won Shin, Peyala Dharmaiah, Jun-Woo Song and Soon-Jik Hong

Materials 2021, 14(11), 2993; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14112993 - 1 Jun 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1999

Abstract

In this work, Bi₀.₅Sb₁.₅Te₃ materials were produced by an economically viable and time efficient water atomization process. The powder samples were heat treated at different temperatures (673 K, 723 K, 743 K, 773 K, 803 K, and 823 K) followed by spark plasma sintering (SPS). It was found that the Te evaporated slightly at 723 K and 743 K and became dominated at 773 K, 803 K, and 823 K, which severely influences the thermoelectric properties. The electrical conductivity was significantly improved for over 803 K heat treated samples due to the remarkable improvement in hole concentration. The power factor values for the 803 K and 823 K samples were significantly larger at T > 350 K compared to other samples. Consequently, the peak ZT of 0.92 at 350 K was obtained for the 803 K sample, which could be useful in commercial thermoelectric power generation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Thermoelectric Materials and Device Design Concepts)

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9 pages, 2572 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Phonon Scattering and Suppression of Bipolar Effect in MgO/VO₂ Nanoparticle Dispersed p-Type Bi_0.5Sb_1.5Te₃ Composites

by Song Yi Back, Jae Hyun Yun, Hyunyong Cho, Gareoung Kim and Jong-Soo Rhyee

Materials 2021, 14(10), 2506; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14102506 - 12 May 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1882

Abstract

Bismuth-Telluride-based compounds are unique materials for thermoelectric cooling applications. Because Bi₂Te₃ is a narrow gap semiconductor, the bipolar diffusion effect is a critical issue to enhance thermoelectric performance. Here, we report the significant reduction of thermal conductivity by decreasing lattice and bipolar thermal conductivity in extrinsic phase mixing of MgO and VO₂ nanoparticles in Bi_0.5Sb_1.5Te₃ (BST) bulk matrix. When we separate the thermal conductivity by electronic

κ_{e l}

, lattice

κ_{l a t}

, and bipolar

κ_{b i}

thermal conductivities, all the contributions in thermal conductivities are decreased with increasing the concentration of oxide particle distribution, indicating the effective phonon scattering with an asymmetric scattering of carriers. The reduction of thermal conductivity affects the improvement of the ZT values. Even though significant carrier filtering effect is not observed in the oxide bulk composites due to micro-meter size agglomeration of particles, the interface between oxide and bulk matrix scatters carriers giving rise to the increase of the Seebeck coefficient and electrical resistivity. Therefore, we suggest the extrinsic phase mixing of nanoparticles decreases lattice and bipolar thermal conductivity, resulting in the enhancement of thermoelectric performance over a wide temperature range. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Thermoelectric Materials and Device Design Concepts)

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10 pages, 2765 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synergistic Enhancement of Thermoelectric Performances by Cl-Doping and Pb-Excess in (Pb,Sn)Se Topological Crystal Insulator

by Jin Hee Kim, Gareoung Kim, Seokyeong Byeon, Hyungyu Jin and Jong-Soo Rhyee

Materials 2021, 14(8), 1920; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14081920 - 12 Apr 2021

Viewed by 1592

Abstract

We investigated the thermoelectric properties of the Pb_0.75Sn_0.25Se and Pb_0.79Sn_0.25Se_1−xCl_x (x = 0.0, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 mol.%) compounds, synthesized by hot-press sintering. The electrical transport properties showed that low concentration doping of Cl (below 0.3 mol.%) in the Pb-excess (Pb,Sn)Se samples increased the carrier concentration and the Hall mobility by the increase of carriers’ mean free path. The effective mass of the carrier was also enhanced from the measurements of the Seebeck coefficient. The enhanced effective masses of the carrier by the Cl-doping can be understood by the enhanced electron-phonon interaction, caused by the crystalline mirror symmetry breaking. The significantly decreased lattice thermal conductivities showed that the crystalline mirror symmetry breaking decreased the lattice thermal conductivity of the Pb-excess (Pb,Sn)Se. By the Cl-doping and the Pb-excess’s synergistic effect, which can suppress the bipolar effect, the zT values of x = 0.2 and 0.3 mol.% reached 0.8 at 773 K. Therefore, we suggest that Pb-excess and the crystalline mirror symmetry breaking by Cl-doping are effective for high thermoelectric performance in the (Pb,Sn)Se. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Thermoelectric Materials and Device Design Concepts)

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14 pages, 3111 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Scattering Mechanisms and Suppression of Bipolar Diffusion Effect in Bi₂Te_2.85Se_0.15I_x Compounds

by Jin Hee Kim, Song Yi Back, Jae Hyun Yun, Ho Seong Lee and Jong-Soo Rhyee

Materials 2021, 14(6), 1564; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14061564 - 22 Mar 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2261

Abstract

We investigated the anisotropic thermoelectric properties of the Bi₂Te_2.85Se_0.15I_x (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 mol.%) compounds, synthesized by ball-milling and hot-press sintering. The electrical conductivities of the Bi₂Te_2.85Se_0.15I_x were significantly improved by the increase of carrier concentration. The dominant electronic scattering mechanism was changed from the mixed (T ≤ 400 K) and ionization scattering (T ≥ 420 K) for pristine compound (x = 0.0) to the acoustic phonon scattering by the iodine doping. The Hall mobility was also enhanced with the increasing carrier concentration. The enhancement of Hall mobility was caused by the increase of the mean free path of the carrier from 10.8 to 17.7 nm by iodine doping, which was attributed to the reduction of point defects without the meaningful change of bandgap energy. From the electron diffraction patterns, a lattice distortion was observed in the iodine doped compounds. The modulation vector due to lattice distortion increased with increasing iodine concentration, indicating the shorter range lattice distortion in real space for the higher iodine concentration. The bipolar thermal conductivity was suppressed, and the effective masses were increased by iodine doping. It suggests that the iodine doping minimizes the ionization scattering giving rise to the suppression of the bipolar diffusion effect, due to the prohibition of the Bi_Te1 antisite defect, and induces the lattice distortion which decreases lattice thermal conductivity, resulting in the enhancement of thermoelectric performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Thermoelectric Materials and Device Design Concepts)

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