Properties and Applications of Thermoelectric Materials

As concerns with the efficient use of energy resources, and the minimization of environmental damage have come to the fore, there has been a renewed interest in the role that thermoelectric devices could play in generating electricity from waste heat, enabling cooling via refrigerators with no moving parts, and many other more specialized applications. The main problem in realizing this ambition is the rather low efficiency of such devices for general applications. This book deals with the proceedings of a workshop addressed that problems by reviewing the latest experimental and theoretical work on suitable materials for device applications and by exploring various strategies that might increase their efficiency.

The proceedings cover a broad range of approaches, from the experimental work of fabricating new compounds through to theoretical work in characterizing and understanding their properties. The effects of strong electron correlation, disorder, the proximity to metal-insulator transitions, the properties of layered composite materials, and the introduction of voids or cages into the structure to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity are all explored as ways of enhancing the efficiency of their use in thermoelectric devices.

Up-date account of activity in the field of materials research for thermoelectric devices Deals with challenging problems in the field of the physics of materials with strong electron correlation Multidisciplinary field of interest to physicists, chemists and engineers with potential for a wide range of applications

Inhalt
Strongly Correlated Electron Phenomena in the Filled Skutterudites.- Role of Structures on Thermal Conductivity in Thermoelectric Materials.- New Approaches to Thermoelectric Materials.- Thermoelectric Effect in Transition Metal Oxides.- Thermoelectric Power of Correlated Compounds.- Thermoelectric Power and Thermal Transport of Anomalous Rare-Earth Kondo Compounds.- Thermoelectrics Near the Mott LocalizationDelocalization Transition.- Quasiparticles, Magnetization Dynamics, and Thermopower of Yb-Based Heavy-Fermion Compounds.- The LDA+DMFT Route to Identify Good Thermoelectrics.- Theory of Electronic Transport and Thermoelectricity in Ordered and Disordered Heavy Fermion Systems.- Role of Multiple Subband Renormalization in the Electronic Transport of Correlated Oxide Superlattices.- Thermoelectric Properties of Junctions Between Metal and Models of Strongly Correlated Semiconductors.- Theory of the Nernst Effect Caused by Fluctuations of the Superconducting Order Parameter.- Quantum Criticality in Heavy Electron Compounds.- Resistivity of Mn1?x Fe x Si Single Crystals: Evidence for Quantum Critical Behavior.- Electron Spectroscopy of Correlated Transition Metal Oxides.- Orbital Fluctuations in the RVO3 Perovskites.- Low Energy Scales of Kondo Lattices: Mean-field Perspective.