Advances In Thermoelectricity Foundational Issues Materials And Nanotechnology

The field of thermoelectricity has continued to develop rapidly in recent years and remains one of the most exciting areas of research for a materials physicist. The need for sustainable energy has added a technological momentum to the challenge of devising materials with exceptional properties such as low thermal conductivity, high electrical conductivity and a large Seebeck coefficient, and has triggered a global, interdisciplinary effort. More recently, research on thermoelectric materials has promoted and motivated a major research endeavor to clarify the factors affecting thermal conductivity in nanostructures as part of a more general effort to apply nanotechnology to enhance the performance of thermoelectric materials for use in thermoelectric generators and coolers. This book contains the lectures presented as Course 207 of the International School of Physics Enrico Fermi, Advances in Thermoelectricity: Foundational Issues, Materials, and Nanotechnology, held in Varenna, Italy from 15 – 20 July 2019. This comprehensive course aimed to provide students with a modern vision of the physics of thermoelectric phenomena, starting from the thermodynamics of thermoelectricity and from the physics of transport processes and demonstrating how material structure and nanostructure, together with defects, have been used to tailor the physical properties of advanced thermoelectrics. Special attention was also given to areas of current research – from spin-caloritronics to charge transport in polymers – and to a selected number of applications for heat recovery. Encompassing the full complexity of modern thermoelectricity and covering the most cogent themes relevant to current research, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

This book provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals and current state of the art in thermoelectrics. Addressing an audience of materials scientists and engineers, the book covers theory, materials selection, and applications, with a wide variety of case studies reflecting the most up-to-date research approaches from the past decade, from single crystal to polycrystalline form and from bulk to thin films to nano dimensions. The world is facing major challenges for finding alternate energy sources that can satisfy the increasing demand for energy consumption while preserving the environment. The field of thermoelectrics has long been recognized as a potential and ideal source of clean energy. However, the relatively low conversion efficiency of thermoelectric devices has prevented their utility on a large scale. While addressing the need for thermal management in materials, device components, and systems, thermoelectrics provides a fundamental solution to waste heat recovery and temperature control. This book summarizes the global efforts that have been made to enhance the figure of merit of various thermoelectric materials by choosing appropriate processes and their influence on properties and performance. Because of these advances, today, thermoelectric devices are found in mainstream applications such as automobiles and power generators, as opposed to just a few years ago when they could only be used in niche applications such as in aeronautics, infrared imaging, and space. However, the continued gap between fundamental theoretical results and actual experimental data of figure of merit and performance continues to challenge the commercial applications of thermoelectrics. This book presents both recent achievements and continuing challenges, and represents essential reading for researchers working in this area in universities, industry, and national labs.

This book provides an overview on nanostructured thermoelectric materials and devices, covering fundamental concepts, synthesis techniques, device contacts and stability, and potential applications, especially in waste heat recovery and solar energy conversion. The contents focus on thermoelectric devices made from nanomaterials with high thermoelectric efficiency for use in large scale to generate megawatts electricity. Covers the latest discoveries, methods, technologies in materials, contacts, modules, and systems for thermoelectricity. Addresses practical details of how to improve the efficiency and power output of a generator by optimizing contacts and electrical conductivity. Gives tips on how to realize a realistic and usable device or module with attention to large scale industry synthesis and product development. Prof. Zhifeng Ren is M. D. Anderson Professor in the Department of Physics and the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston. Prof. Yucheng Lan is an associate professor in Morgan State University. Prof. Qinyong Zhang is a professor in the Center for Advanced Materials and Energy at Xihua University of China.

Your guide to advanced thermoelectric materials Written by a distinguished group of contributors, this book provides comprehensive coverage of the most up-to-date information on all aspects of advanced thermoelectric materials — ranging from system biology, diagnostics, imaging, image-guided therapy, therapeutics, biosensors, and translational medicine and personalized medicine, as well as the much broader task of covering most topics of biomedical research.

For the efficient utilization of energy resources and the minimization of environmental damage, thermoelectric materials can play an important role by converting waste heat into electricity directly. Nanostructured thermoelectric materials have received much attention recently due to the potential for enhanced properties associated with size effects and quantum confinement. Nanoscale Thermoelectrics describes the theory underlying these phenomena, as well as various thermoelectric materials and nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes, SiGe nanowires, and graphene nanoribbons. Chapters written by leading scientists throughout the world are intended to create a fundamental bridge between thermoelectrics and nanotechnology, and to stimulate readers' interest in developing new types of thermoelectric materials and devices for power generation and other applications. Nanoscale Thermoelectrics is both a comprehensive introduction to the field and a guide to further research, and can be recommended for Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Materials Science departments.

Environmental and economic concerns have significantly spurred the search for novel, high-performance thermoelectric materials for energy conversion in small-scale power generation and refrigeration devices. This quest has been mainly fueled by the introduction of new designs and the synthesis of new materials. In fact, good thermoelectric materials must simultaneously exhibit extreme properties: they must have very low thermal conductivity values and both electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient high values as well. Since these transport coefficients are interrelated, the required task of optimization is a formidable one. Thus, thermoelectric materials provide a full-fledged example of interdisciplinary research connecting fields such as solid-state physics, materials science engineering, and structural chemistry and raise the need of gaining proper knowledge of the role played by the electronic structure in the thermal and electrical transport properties of solid matter. This book presents a detailed, updated introduction to the field of thermoelectric materials in a tutorial way, focusing on both basic notions and fundamental questions and illustrating the abstract concepts with suitable application examples. It discusses thermoelectric effects, the transport coefficients and their mutual relations, the efficiency of thermoelectric devices, and some notions on the characterization and related industry standards. It also reviews the two basic strategies for optimizing the thermoelectric performance of materials: the control of thermal conductivity and the power factor enhancement. It discusses structural complexity approach, focusing on complex enough lattice structures with heavy atoms in the unit-cell or nanostructured systems characterized by low-dimensional effects, and introducing different kinds of bulk materials of growing chemical and structural complexity. It also discusses the electronic structure engineering approach that focuses on obtaining a guiding principle, in terms of an electronic band structure tailoring process, and describes the role played by the electronic structure in the thermoelectric performance of different materials.

This book is a comprehensive collection of the most influential papers on thermoelectricity published in the last two centuries. Starting with the pioneering work of Volta, Seebeck, and Peltier on thermoelectric phenomena, it takes the reader through a historical journey of articles and books that have shaped the field of thermoelectricity, covering topics ranging from fundamental physics to novel materials. The book is annotated by a team of distinguished researchers from around the world and includes English translations of the earliest research reports on thermoelectricity, many of which have never been made available before. This provides a unique opportunity to explore the scientific evolution of this groundbreaking discipline. Whether you are a seasoned expert or a newcomer to the field, this book is an invaluable resource for understanding the rich history and current state of thermoelectricity research.

In order to achieve the revolutionary new defense capabilities offered by materials science and engineering, innovative management to reduce the risks associated with translating research results will be needed along with the R&D. While payoff is expected to be high from the promising areas of materials research, many of the benefits are likely to be evolutionary. Nevertheless, failure to invest in more speculative areas of research could lead to undesired technological surprises. Basic research in physics, chemistry, biology, and materials science will provide the seeds for potentially revolutionary technologies later in the 21st century.