An ideal thermoelectric (TE) material would be a semiconductor with high electrical conductivity but low thermal conductivity. Introducing heterostructures into the bulk TE matrix is one way of achieving this intuitively anomalous electron/phonon transport behavior. The heterostructured interfaces are expected to not only scatter the phonons to reduce thermal conductivity, but also scatter the low energy carriers to improve Seebeck coefficient. However, the key problem is the stabilization of nanoinclusions at high temperature.Here, we report an ALD approach to coat thin oxide layer to prevent the undesired diffusions of the metallic atoms to the host. The metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructures behaves surprisingly high power factor (~18 �W/(cm�K2) at 470 K).  Besides, the metallic hetero-inclusions are well maintained by the oxide layer protection under high temperature and the enhancement of Seebeck coefficient is significant up to 500 K. This approach opens new avenue to the next generation thermoelectric materials.

Wet chemical approached hetero-structured thermoelectric materials with metallic nanoinclusions: Thermal stabilities improvement and power factor enhancement

244th National Meeting (2012)

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