Synthesis and characterization of novel nanostructured thermoelectric materials

Having been hibernated for almost 50 years, research in thermoelectric materials is beginning to regain activity because of the recent advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Thermoelectric is an old topic, which was discovered as early as 1821 by Thomas Johann Seebeck. During the following 120 years, great advances in both the theories and experiments were achieved. Since the 1950s, studies in thermoelectric have developed very little, because of the painful difficulties in elevating the efficiency of these kinds of materials. The efficiency of thermoelectric materials is determined by a dimensionless parameter--figure of merit (ZT), given by ZT = S2σT/κ where T is the temperature, S is the thermoelectric power (or Seebeck coefficient), σ is the electrical conductivity, and κ is the thermal conductivity. The best commercially available thermoelectric materials nowadays have a ZT around 1.0, which can be only used in some special cases. To be competitive to the kitchen refrigerators or air-conditioners, a ZT ⩾ 3 at room temperature is required. Recently, some exciting results indicated that higher ZT values can be realized by nanoengineering of these materials. Both theoretical calculations and experimental modulations have shown the promising potentials in the elevation of the efficiency of thermoelectric materials.