Characterization of nanoembedded alloyed thermoelectrics

Abstract

Nano-structured alloyed materials have been demonstrated with a large improvement of their thermoelectric properties. These improvements have been obtained by tailoring a reduction in the material thermal conductivity. However, such improvements have not yet been demonstrated for bulk materials. Recently, a new approach based on phonon scattering theory has been successfully applied to bulk materials. In this approach, nanoparticles are embedded in a hosting matrix and act as multi-scale phonon scattering centres providing a reduction in the material thermal conductivity. In this work, {CoSi2 (nanoparticle): SiGe (host)} nanocomposite thermoelectric materials and their precursors for the synthesis were investigated. The purpose of the investigation is to understand the inherent interactions of the nanoparticles with the support material. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.