期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2016
卷号:113
期号:48
页码:13576-13581
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1617663113
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:SignificanceThermoelectric technology can boost energy consumption efficiency by converting some of the waste heat into useful electricity. Heat-to-power conversion efficiency optimization is mainly achieved by decreasing the thermal conductivity in many materials. In comparison, there has been much less success in increasing the power factor. We report successful power factor enhancement by improving the carrier mobility. Our successful approach could suggest methods to improve the power factor in other materials. Using our approach, the highest power factor reaches [~]106 W*cm-1*K-2 at room temperature. Such a high power factor further yields a record output power density in a single-leg device tested between 293 K and 868 K, thus demonstrating the importance of high power factor for power generation applications. Improvements in thermoelectric material performance over the past two decades have largely been based on decreasing the phonon thermal conductivity. Enhancing the power factor has been less successful in comparison. In this work, a peak power factor of [~]106 W*cm-1*K-2 is achieved by increasing the hot pressing temperature up to 1,373 K in the p-type half-Heusler Nb0.95Ti0.05FeSb. The high power factor subsequently yields a record output power density of [~]22 W*cm-2 based on a single-leg device operating at between 293 K and 868 K. Such a high-output power density can be beneficial for large-scale power generation applications.
关键词:half-Heusler ; thermoelectric ; power factor ; carrier mobility ; output power density