Nanostructured Thermoelectric Films Synthesised by Spark Ablation and Their Oxidation Behaviour

Nanostructured Thermoelectric Films Synthesised by Spark Ablation and Their Oxidation Behaviour: Nanomaterials

van Ginkel, H.J. (TU Delft Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
Mitterhuber, Lisa (Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH)
van de Putte, Marijn Willem (University of Twente)
Huijben, Mark (University of Twente)
Vollebregt, S. (TU Delft Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
Zhang, Kouchi (TU Delft Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)

2023

Reducing the thermal conductivity of thermoelectric materials has been a field of intense research to improve the efficiency of thermoelectric devices. One approach is to create a nanostructured thermoelectric material that has a low thermal conductivity due to its high number of grain boundaries or voids, which scatter phonons. Here, we present a new method based on spark ablation nanoparticle generation to create nanostructured thermoelectric materials, demonstrated using Bi2Te3. The lowest achieved thermal conductivity was <0.1 W m−1 K−1 at room temperature with a mean nanoparticle size of 8±2 nm and a porosity of 44%. This is comparable to the best published nanostructured Bi2Te3 films. Oxidation is also shown to be a major issue for nanoporous materials such as the one here, illustrating the importance of immediate, air-tight packaging of such materials after synthesis and deposition.

thermoelectric
nanoparticle
Bi2Te3
spark ablation
nanostructured

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b78c39ea-a071-4783-af71-2d889152f1ae

https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13111778

2079-4991

Nanomaterials, 13 (11)

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 H.J. van Ginkel, Lisa Mitterhuber, Marijn Willem van de Putte, Mark Huijben, S. Vollebregt, Kouchi Zhang