Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency in non-uniform semiconductor nanowires

19th International Conference on Electron Dynamics in Semiconductors, Optoelectronics and Nanostructures

Park, K.H.^1,2 ; Martin, P.N.^1,2 ; Ravaioli, U.^1,2

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana

IL

61801, United States^1

Beckman Institute for Advanced Technology and Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana

IL

61801, United States^2

关键词: Electronic materials;    Non-uniform;    Semiconductor nanostructures;    Semiconductor nanowire;    Thermal transport;    Thermoelectric efficiency;    Thermoelectric figure of merit;    Thermoelectric transport;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/647/1/012053/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/647/1/012053

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Thermoelectric efficiency has been limited to a non-practical range because of the electronic material properties that are not easily controlled. Therefore, limiting thermal transport has been the best approach to enhance efficiency, and efforts to reduce the thermal conductivity even further have been extensively reported. In this work, we investigate thermoelectric transport coefficients of uniformly straight and sinusoidally undulated nanowires and compare the resulting thermoelectric figure-of-merit. The improved efficiency should suggest another strategy to effectively control thermal transport in semiconductor nanostructures.