Related papers: Efficiency in nanostructured thermionic and thermo…
The thermoelectric efficiency of semiconductors is usually considered in the ohmic electronic transport regime, which is achieved through high doping. Here we consider the opposite regime of low doping where the current-voltage…
By converting waste heat into electricity through the thermoelectric power of solids without producing greenhouse gas emissions, thermoelectric generators could be an important part of the solution to today's energy challenge. There has…
Nanostructured materials and nanocomposites have shown great promise for improving the efficiency of thermoelectric materials. Herein, Fe nanoparticles were imbedded into a CrN matrix by combining two physical vapor deposition approaches,…
Several models of thermionic energy nanoconverters have been proposed to study the transport phenomena that take place in electronic devices. For example, in resonant tunneling junctions those phenomena are manifested through the…
Controlling heat flow by phononic nanodevices has received significant attention recently because of its fundamental and practical implications. Elementary phononic devices such as thermal rectifiers, transistors, and logic gates are…
Materials capable of highly efficient, direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion would have substantial economic potential. Theory predicts that thermoelectric efficiencies approaching the Carnot limit can be achieved at low temperatures…
The quest for good thermoelectric materials and/or high-efficiency thermoelectric devices is of primary importance from theoretical and practical points of view. Low-dimensional structures with quantum dots or molecules are promising…
The thermoelectric (TE) properties of a material are dramatically altered when electron-electron interactions become the dominant scattering mechanism. In the degenerate hydrodynamic regime, the thermal conductivity is reduced and becomes a…
I propose a design strategy to enhance the performance of heat engine via absorption of thermal energy from the channel region. The absorption of thermal energy can be actuated by inelastic processes and may be accomplished by an energy…
The utilization of ferromagnetic (FM) materials in thermoelectric devices allows one to have a simpler structure and/or independent control of electric and thermal conductivities, which may further remove obstacles for this technology to be…
Thermoelectricity is the direct conversion of temperature gradient to electric voltage, and vice-versa. There are several potential applications of thermoelectricity, ranging from clean noiseless cooling, to waste-power harvesting in…
With the continuous advancement of nanotechnology, nanodevices have become crucial components in computing, sensing and energy conversion applications. However, the structures of nanodevices typically possess sub-wavelength dimensions and…
We investigate the near-field heat transfer between a semi-infinite medium and a nanoparticle made of composite materials. We show that, in the effective medium approximation, the heat transfer can be greatly enhanced by considering…
Traditional thermoelectric materials rely on low thermal conductivity to enhance their efficiency but suffer from inherently limited power factors. Novel pathways to optimize electronic transport are thus crucial. Here, we achieve ultrahigh…
This work investigates an alternative to thermophotovoltaics for harvesting thermal and optical energy via photon coupling and thermionic energy conversion. In this device, a heat source is radiatively coupled to a thermionic electron…
Boundary-engineering in nanostructures has the potential to dramatically impact the development of materials for high-efficiency conversion of thermal energy directly into electricity. In particular, nanostructuring of semiconductors can…
Near-field thermophotovoltaic systems can achieve ultra-high power densities, however, this often comes at the cost of reduced efficiency. We show that this power-efficiency trade-off can be mitigated through substrate engineering. We…
The ability to spectrally translate lightwave signals in a compact, low-power platform is at the heart of the promise of nonlinear nanophotonic technologies. For example, a device to link the telecommunications band with visible and short…
The speed of integrated circuits is ultimately limited by the mobility of electrons or holes, which depend on the effective mass in a semiconductor. Here, building on an analogy with electromagnetic metamaterials and transformation optics,…
Energy filtering has been suggested by many authors as a means to improve thermoelectric properties. The idea is to filter away low-energy charge carriers in order to increase Seebeck coefficient without compromising electronic…