Title :
Novel fabrication technique for improving the figure-of-merit of thermoelectric materials
Author :
Beaty, J.S. ; Masters, R. ; Vandersande, J.W. ; Wood, C.
Author_Institution :
Thermo Electron Technol. Corp., Waltham, MA, USA
Abstract :
Reduction of the thermal conductivity of thermoelectric materials in order to improve the figure of merit and, hence, the conversion efficiency is discussed. A novel fabrication technique that reduces the thermal conductivity without too adverse an effect on the electrical properties is reported. This is achieved by producing an oxygen-free, very-fine-grain SiGe alloy with very small (on the order of 50 Å) precipitates
Keywords :
Ge-Si alloys; semiconductor materials; thermoelectric conversion; SiGe alloy; conversion efficiency; fabrication technique; figure-of-merit; semiconductor; thermal conductivity; thermoelectric materials; Conducting materials; Fabrication; Germanium silicon alloys; Grain boundaries; Phonons; Reactive power; Scattering; Silicon germanium; Thermal conductivity; Thermoelectricity;
Conference_Titel :
Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 1989. IECEC-89., Proceedings of the 24th Intersociety
Conference_Location :
Washington, DC
DOI :
10.1109/IECEC.1989.74541
