L. P. Bulat, V. B. Osvenskii, Yu. N. Parkhomenko, D. A. Pshenay-Severin, “Investigation of the possibilities for increasing the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanostructured materials based on Bi$_2$Te$_3$–Sb$_2$Te$_3$ solid solutions”, Fizika Tverdogo Tela, 2012, Volume 54, Issue 11,Pages 2036

This article is cited in 13 papers

Semiconductors

Investigation of the possibilities for increasing the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanostructured materials based on Bi$_2$Te$_3$–Sb$_2$Te$_3$ solid solutions

L. P. Bulat^a, V. B. Osvenskii^b, Yu. N. Parkhomenko^b, D. A. Pshenay-Severin^c

^a St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
^b JSC "Giredmet" SRC RF, the Federal State Research and Design Institute of Rare Metal Industry, Moscow
^c Ioffe Institute, St. Petersburg

Abstract: The transport coefficients and thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$ for bulk nanostructured materials based on Bi$_2$Te$_3$–Sb$_2$Te$_3$ solid solutions have been investigated theoretically. Similar materials prepared by rapid quenching of the melt with the subsequent grinding and sintering contain amorphous and nanocrystalline regions with different sizes of particles. According to the performed estimations, the thermoelectric figure of merit of the amorphous phase can exceed the value of $ZT$ for the initial solid solution by a factor of 2–3 primarily due to the significant decrease in the thermal conductivity. The effective transport coefficients of the medium as a whole have also been investigated as a function of the parameters of each phase, and the concentration range of the amorphous phase, which corresponds to the effective values $ZT >$ 1, has been determined.

Received: 19.03.2012