Electronic and Transport Properties of Novel Thermoelectrics

In recent years there have been a revival of interest
in discovering and understanding the physical
properties of novel thermoelectric (TE) materials
with high figure of merit. These materials are
primarily narrow band gap semiconductors. In this
book, electronic structure calculations were carried
out for several narrow band gap chalcogenide TE
materials in order to understand their electronic and
transport properties governing their TE
characteristics. These calculations were performed
within DFT whereas the transport calculations were
carried out using Boltzmann transport equations. The
effect of quantum confinement created by the surfaces
of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 (impact of interlayer bonding)
and their superlattice electronic properties were
investigated. The complex materials (K2Bi8Se13,
AgPbmSbTe2+m (LAST-m)) were studied. For PbTe and
LAST-m materials, which are among the best bulk TE at
high temperatures, transport calculations were
performed. This study should be useful to
professionals in the field of thermoelectricity, or
anyone interested in electronic and transport
properties of narrow gap semiconductors.

Autorentext

Daniel I. Bilc was born in Huedin, Romania, 1973. He received hisB.Sc. in physics from "Babes-Bolyai" University in 1996. Hecontinued his education in USA at Michigan State University. Fromthis institution he received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in2005. At present he is a research associate at University ofLiege, Belgium.

Klappentext

In recent years there have been a revival of interest in discovering and understanding the physical properties of novel thermoelectric (TE) materials with high figure of merit. These materials are primarily narrow band gap semiconductors. In this book, electronic structure calculations were carried out for several narrow band gap chalcogenide TE materials in order to understand their electronic and transport properties governing their TE characteristics. These calculations were performed within DFT whereas the transport calculations were carried out using Boltzmann transport equations. The effect of quantum confinement created by the surfaces of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 (impact of interlayer bonding) and their superlattice electronic properties were investigated. The complex materials (K2Bi8Se13, AgPbmSbTe2+m (LAST-m)) were studied. For PbTe and LAST-m materials, which are among the best bulk TE at high temperatures, transport calculations were performed. This study should be useful to professionals in the field of thermoelectricity, or anyone interested in electronic and transport properties of narrow gap semiconductors.