Ultrahigh Thermoelectric Performance in Mosaic Crystals

Ying He; Ping Lu; Xun Shi; Fangfang Xu; Tiansong Zhang; Gerald Jeffrey Snyder; Ctirad Uher; Lidong Chen

doi:10.1002/adma.201501030

Ultrahigh Thermoelectric Performance in Mosaic Crystals

Adv Mater. 2015 Jun 24;27(24):3639-44. doi: 10.1002/adma.201501030. Epub 2015 May 12.

Authors

Ying He^{1

2

3}, Ping Lu^{1

3}, Xun Shi^{1

2}, Fangfang Xu¹, Tiansong Zhang², Gerald Jeffrey Snyder⁴, Ctirad Uher⁵, Lidong Chen^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
⁶ Shanghai Institute of Materials, Genome, Shanghai, 200444, China.

PMID: 25962487
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201501030

Abstract

Successful research strategies to enhance the dimensionless figure of merit zT above 2 rely on either bulk nanomaterials or on single crystals. A new physical mechanism of nanoscale mosaicity is shown that goes beyond the approaches in single crystals or conventional nanomaterials. A zT value of 2.1 at 1000 K in bulk nanomaterials is achieved.

Keywords: electrical conductivity; mosaic crystals; thermal conductivity; thermoelectric materials; thermopower.