The global demand for sustainable energy imposes a pressing need for breakthroughs in alternative energy technologies, including that of direct thermal-electrical energy conversion via thermoelectricity. Despite
many technical advantages, thermoelectricity has long been restricted to niche applications due to a low conversion efficiency. Improvement of this conversion efficiency hinges primarily upon decoupling the otherwise inter-dependent material parameters (resistivity, thermopower and thermal conductivity) as a group to attain a higher figure of merit, ZT. In the last 10-15 years, the synergy of nanomaterials and thermoelectrics has culminated into a new paradigm, “nanostructured thermoelectrics”. By extending the control of charge and entropy transport from the atomic scale to the nanometer scale, the implementation of the “nanostructuring” process may help ease the limitations that arise from the inter-dependence of these material parameters. This presentation will highlight a case study of the Bi2Te3 material. The results of transport property, microscopy and neutron scattering measurements provide new in-depth knowledge that is crucial for the design of higher performance thermoelectric materials.
*This work is support by DOE-EPSCoR.