Related papers: Thermoelectric Energy Conversion: How Good Can Sil…
Diamond has always been adored as a jewel. Even more fascinating is its outstanding physical properties; it is the hardest material known in the world with the highest thermal conductivity. Meanwhile, when we turn to its electrical…
The inherent trade-off between ultra-low thermal conductivity and high mechanical rigidity in natural materials limits their utility in advanced applications. Inspired by the unique architecture of layered honeycomb structures, this study…
Improving the thermoelectric efficiency is one of the greatest challenges in materials science. The recent discovery of excellent thermoelectric performance in simple orthorhombic SnSe crystal offers new promise in this prospect [Zhao et…
Topological insulators (TI) have attracted extensive research effort due to their insulating bulk states but conducting surface states. However, investigation and understanding of thermal transport in topological insulators, particularly…
Water can be transitioned to an enhanced heat-conducting phase by supercooling only the water at the bottom of a container. The temperature gradient across the 4 cm in the center of an 8 cm long column of water with a 397 mW heat source at…
Among several solutions to exploit solar energy, thermophotovoltaics (TPV) have been popularized and have known great breakthroughs during the past two decades. Yet, existing systems still have low efficiencies since the wavelength range of…
The ability to engineer the thermal conductivity of materials allows us to control the flow of heat and derive novel functionalities such as thermal rectification, thermal switching, and thermal cloaking. While this could be achieved by…
Van der Waals layered chalcogenide-based flexible thermoelectric devices show great potential for applications in wearable electronics. However, materials that are both highly deformable and exhibit superior thermoelectric performance are…
We study the thermoelectric properties of three-dimensional topological insulators with many holes (or pores) in the bulk. We show that at high density of these holes the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT can be large due to the…
Heat dissipation is one of the most serious problems in modern integrated electronics with the continuously decreasing devices size. Large portion of the consumed power is inevitably dissipated in the form of waste heat which not only…
We develop an effective medium model of thermal conductivity that accounts for both percolation and interface scattering. This model accurately explains the measured increase and decrease of thermal conductivity with loading in composites…
Confined electrons in low dimensions host desirable material functions for downscaled electronics as well as advanced energy technologies. Thermoelectricity is a most fascinating example, since the dimensionality modifies the electron…
We present a detailed thermal and structural analysis of a 2m class solar telescope mirror which is subjected to a varying heat load at an observatory site. A 3-dimensional heat transfer model of the mirror takes into account the heating…
SnTe is a potential thermoelectric material in the mid temperature range. Detailed techniques to enhance the figure of merit by increasing the Power Factor, and reducing thermal conductivity, of SnTe-based TE materials are discussed. The…
Among the several flexible thermoelectric modules in existence, sintered Bi-Te-based modules represent a viable option because of their high output power density and flexibility, which enables the use of arbitrary heat sources. We have…
Superconducting properties of a material, such as electron-electron interactions and the critical temperature of superconducting transition can be expressed via the effective dielectric response function of the material. Such a description…
Nanostructured composites and nanowire arrays of traditional thermoelectrics like Bi, Bi(1-x)Sb(x) and Bi(2)Te(3) have metallic Rashba surface spin-orbit bands featuring high mobilities rivaling that of the bulk for which topological…
Semiconductor quantum wires constitute a promising thermoelectric material because of the increase of the electronic density of states in low-dimensional materials. We studied the magnetic-field-dependent resistance and Seebeck coefficient…
In this paper we describe a spatial decomposition of the thermal conductivity, what we name "site-projected thermal conductivity", a gauge of the thermal conduction activity at each site. The method is based on the Green-Kubo formula and…
Thermal transmission in a molecular transistor with fully spin-polarized electrodes subjected to a temperature gradient is considered. The problem has been solved by using density matrix method in perturbation approach over small tunneling…