Nanostructured Thermoelectric Films Synthesised by Spark Ablation and Their Oxidation Behaviour
Nanomaterials
Hendrik Joost van Ginkel (TU Delft - Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
Lisa Mitterhuber (Materials Center Leoben Forschung GmbH)
Marijn Willem van de Putte (University of Twente)
Mark Huijben (University of Twente)
S Vollebregt (TU Delft - Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
Guo-Qi Zhang (TU Delft - Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
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Abstract
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.
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