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Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and This article reviews the basic physics and com-

mercial applications of thermoelectric devices, the


Power Generations With No Moving Parts properties of state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials,
and approaches to the atomic-level design of new
In a solid that conducts both heat and electricity, the thermoelectric materials with improved efficiencies.
thermal and electrical currents are coupled together.
This thermoelectric coupling can be used to construct
devices that act as refrigerators, power generators, or 1. Basic Thermoelectric Science
temperature sensors. The devices work because the
electrons or holes in a conducting solid also carry heat The basic thermodynamics of these devices was
as well as electrical charge. Therefore, the electrical worked out in the mid-nineteenth century by William
carriers are the ‘‘working fluid’’ in a thermoelectric Thompson (Lord Kelvin) who showed the mathe-
refrigerator. Thermoelectric devices are attractive for matical connection between heat and electrical curr-
many applications as they have no moving parts ents in a conducting solid:
(except electrons and holes), use no liquid refrigerant, J l σ(EkS]T) and Q l (σTS)Ekκ]T (1)
and last indefinitely. The major disadvantage of these
devices is poor efficiency. where J is the electrical current density, σ the electrical
Thermoelectrics is an old field. In 1823 Thomas conductivity, E the electric field, S the Seebeck
Seebeck discovered that a voltage drop appears across coefficient, T the temperature, Q the heat current
a sample that has a temperature gradient. This density, and κ the thermal conductivity. Only S causes
phenomenon provided the basis for thermocouples any conceptual difficulty. It is the average entropy per
used for measuring temperature and for thermoelectric charge carrier divided by the electron charge. A small
power generators. In 1838 Henrich Lenz placed a drop temperature difference, ∆T, across any electrical cond-
of water on the junction of metal wires made of uctor will generate a corresponding voltage, ∆V. If
bismuth and antimony. Passing an electric current there is no electrical current passing through the
through the junction in one direction caused the water sample, the ratio ∆V\∆T is the experimental definition
to freeze, and reversing the current caused the ice to of S. Solving these equations in one dimension, with
quickly melt: thus thermoelectric refrigeration was the appropriate boundary conditions, leads to expr-
demonstrated. essions that describe the efficiency of an idealized
These thermoelectric effects remained little more device in terms of the electrical and thermal transport
than a curiosity until the 1950s when Abram Ioffe coefficients that characterize the thermoelectric mate-
found that doped semiconductors had a much larger rial (see Thermal ConductiŠity and Thermoelectric
thermoelectric effect than did other materials (metals Power : Theoretical Concepts).
or insulators). He suggested that domestic refriger- The efficiency of a thermoelectric solid is found
ation could be accomplished with semiconductors to depend on material properties through the
thereby igniting a worldwide frenzy of research and dimensionless parameter ZT:
development activity. The early days of semiconductor
physics were not driven by the prospect of micro- ZT l TS#\κρ (2)
electronics, but were motivated by thermoelectric
refrigeration. This focus lasted only a few years, during where the electrical resistivity is ρ l 1\σ. Z is defined
which virtually every known semiconductor, semi- as the figure of merit and ZT is often referred to as the
metal, and alloy was investigated. It was found dimensionless figure of merit. For power generation
that the best materials at room temperature were the efficiency is defined as heat in divided by work out
Bi Te –Sb Te alloys. and is given by:
#Thermoelectric
$ # $ (also called Peltier) refrigerators
with bismuth telluride alloys, however, produce only (ThkTc)(γk1)
Efficiency l (3)
moderate amounts of cooling, and have poor effi- TcjγTh
ciencies compared to compressor-based refrigerators.
As a result thermoelectric refrigerators are used mainly where Tc(Th) is the temperature of the cold (hot) end
in applications in which reliability or convenience is and γ l (1jZT)"/# varies with the average temp-
more important than economy. Thermoelectric erature T. For refrigeration, efficiency is defined as the
coolers can be powered by a car battery for portable work in divided by the heat pumped out and is called
beverage storage, or by a power supply to provide the coefficient of performance (COP). The COP can be
active cooling for computer central processing units or greater than unity and is given by:
for infrared detectors. Thermoelectric generators,
usually made with silicon–germanium alloys, are used γTckTh
as power sources for many of NASA’s deep-space COP l (4)
(ThkTc)(1jγ)
probes and also are used to convert waste heat into
electricity.

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Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

For ZT  1, Carnot efficiency is obtained for power 1000


generation and the Carnot limit to the COP is obtained (a)
for refrigeration. Materials used in thermoelectric 100

Resistivity, q (mX cm–1)


devices have ZT values between 0.4 and 1.0.
All thermoelectric materials used in refrigeration or 10

Insulator
power generation devices are heavily doped semi-

Metal
conductors. Their physical features are illustrated by a
1
calculation of the figure of merit (ZT) as a function of
the carrier concentration at room temperature (Fig. 1)
using an idealized model of a semiconductor (Golds- 0.1
mid 1986). One parabolic band is used (i.e., an electron
energy proportional to the square of momentum), the 0.01
carriers have an effective mass of 0.72 times that of the
free electron value, a mobility of 625 cm# VV" sV" at 700
low carrier concentrations, and their scattering is due (b)
600
to acoustic phonons. The lattice contribution to the

Thermopower, S (lV K–1)


thermal conductivity is taken to be 1 W mV" KV" 500
(10 mW cmV" KV"), a value near the lower limit for

Insulator
good thermoelectric materials. Within the framework 400

Metal
of this simple model, metals are poor thermoelectric 300
materials because of a low Seebeck coefficient and a
large electronic contribution to the thermal conduc- 200
tivity. Insulators (or lightly doped semiconductors)
100
have large Seebeck coefficients and a small electronic
contribution to the thermal conductivity, but have too 0
few carriers, which results in a large electrical res-
istivity. For this example, the largest value for ZT is 100
obtained midway between these two extremes (metal jTotal = jElec + jLat (c)
Thermal cond., j (mW cm–1 K–1)

or insulator) at a carrier concentration of about 80


10"* carriers cmV$. For optimum thermoelectric per-
formance the energy gap of the semiconductor must be 60
Insulator

at least 10kBTmax (Tmax l maximum operating tem-

Metal
jTotal
perature), otherwise the simultaneous excitation of
40
intrinsic electrons and holes lowers S and ZT.
Another important observation from Fig. 1 is that jLattice
while it is possible to change some of the electrical and 20
thermal properties of a thermoelectric material by
varying the carrier concentration, the ability of the 0
lattice to conduct heat is only slightly affected by
1
changes in the carrier concentration. Hence, if the
lattice thermal conductivity is high, ZT will always be (d)
low. 0.8
Figure of merit, ZT

0.6
Insulator

2. Thermoelectric Devices
Metal

All thermoelectric devices are composed of thermo- 0.4


electric couples such as those illustrated in Fig. 2. Each
leg of the couple is a doped semiconductor (or
0.2
semimetal) with one p-type and one n-type leg. p-Type
(n-type) means that the dominant charge carriers are
positive (negative). One side of the couple is thermally 0
1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022
and electrically shorted together using a metal like n (cm–3)
copper (dark gray region). Electrical and thermal
contact to a heat sink and the battery or load is made
Figure 1
through copper pads at the open end of the couple
Room temperature transport properties calculated for an
(dark gray regions). Since the electrons and holes in a idealized semiconductor vs. carrier concentration. For this
material carry heat, a battery can be used to force the example, optimum thermoelectric performance is attained
hot electrons and holes away from the cold end of at a carrier concentration, n, of about 10"* cmV$.
the device resulting in cooling of the cold end. If the

2
Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

Active Cooling Heat Source Apollo, and Ulysses. A radioactive module, typically
containing #$)Pu, is used as the source of heat.
P N P N Thermoelectric couples are used to convert the heat
directly into electricity. The couples are typically made
using p- and n-type PbTe alloys for maximum tem-
peratures of less than 900 K and p- and n-type GeSi
alloys for temperatures less than 1300 K. The genera-
Heat Rejection Heat Sink
tors used by NASA have maximum power outputs
between 3 W and 300 W.
Commercial thermoelectric generators have been
I available since the early 1960s, and they are used in
I
industrial applications all over the world. Over 20
Refrigeration Power Generation different models of thermoelectric generators are
currently available with power outputs ranging from
Figure 2
10 W to 550 W. Most of the generators use natural gas
A single thermoelectric couple that has been configured for as the heat source, but a few use kerosene or diesel.
refrigeration or power generation. ‘‘P’’ (positive) and The main advantage of these generators is that they
‘‘N’’ (negative) refer to the sign of the charge carriers in can operate continuously in remote locations and only
each leg (open circles correspond to holes and filled circles need minimal maintenance.
to electrons). Refrigeration is possible in these devices There has been increasing interest in the conversion
because electrons (or holes) carry heat, and hot electrons of low-temperature ( 100–200 mC) ‘‘waste’’ heat
(holes) can be forced away from the cold end of the device sources into useful electrical power. A variety of heat
by the battery. If a temperature difference is externally sources are considered such as geothermal, ocean
imposed on the device, useful power can be extracted. thermal energy, peat deposits, solar ponds, and waste
cooling water associated with power stations and
direction of the current is reversed, the hot and cold other large utilities. Although the efficiency of thermo-
ends are also reversed. If a temperature gradient is electric generators is not very high for weak heat
imposed across the thermoelectric couple, useful sources, the heat source is free and efficiency is not a
power can be extracted. In an actual thermoelectric main concern.
device, typically several tens of these couples are Most thermoelectric refrigerators are used for spot
connected together in series. Figure 3 shows a com- cooling of electronics or in specialized laboratory
mercial multistage thermoelectric refrigerator com- equipment. A wide variety of infrared detectors can be
posed of approximately 50 thermoelectric couples of reliably cooled using thermoelectric refrigerators with-
n- and p-type Bi Te –Sb Te . The small copper plate at out having to continually replace a liquid cryogen.
# $ # $can reach temperatures as
the top of the refrigerator Laser modules of various types are used as the
low as 160 K (k113 mC). There are a variety of transmitters in fiber optic networks. Thermoelectric
applications (or proposed applications) that use refrigerators are used to maintain the laser chip at a
either thermoelectric refrigerators or thermoelectric constant temperature. If the chip temperature drops
generators and a few are listed in Table 1. too low, the direction of the current through the
NASA has used thermoelectric generators for many thermoelectric module is reversed which results in
of their space probes such as Pioneer, Viking, Galileo, warming of the chip. A constant laser chip temperature

Table 1
Current and proposed applications for thermoelectric devices (proposed applications in italics).
Refrigeration
Spot cooling of electronics: infrared detectors, computer CPUs, X-ray detectors, fiber optic laser packages
Picnic coolers (powered by car battery)
Air conditioning in submarines and railway coaches
Water coolers
Superconducting electronics
Domestic refrigerators
Power generation
Power for deep-space probes (Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, Galileo)
Remote weather stations
Remote navigational systems
Submarines
Undersea power generation (for petroleum wellhead valves)
ConŠersion of waste heat into useful electrical power: large diesel trucks, steel industry, chemical industry

3
Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

Figure 3
A multistage thermoelectric cooling module capable of reaching temperatures as low as 160 K at the small copper pad on
the final (highest) stage. The large copper pad at the bottom of the first stage is normally attached to a heat sink. The
cooling module is composed of about 50 thermoelectric couples similar to those shown in Fig. 2 (courtesy of Marlow
Industries, Dallas, TX).

is important since both the laser output power and factures air-conditioning systems based on thermo-
output wavelength are sensitive to small temperature electric modules. A typical unit from this company has
changes. There are a large number of low cooling a cooling power of 400 W. A more complete discussion
power ( 100 W) uses for thermoelectric modules in of the details of thermoelectric devices and their design
laboratory equipment in the semiconductor, biotech- is given in Rowe (1995).
nology, and medical industries. For example, sample
tissue can easily be sliced to a thin specimen for
microscopy by freezing using a thermoelectric cooling
3. Thermoelectric Materials
stage. There have been a few uses of thermoelectric
coolers in consumer products. The most familiar is the All thermoelectric generators and refrigerators use
portable picnic box that can keep food and beverages materials that were discovered in the early 1960s. For
cool using the power available from the cigarette refrigeration and the conversion of low-temperature
lighter socket in cars. There have been several large- waste heat into electricity, materials based on Bi Te
scale thermoelectric air-conditioner units developed –Sb Te alloys are used. Higher temperature thermo-# $
for military applications. For example, RCA made a # $
electric generators employ either SiGe or PbTe alloys
30 kW air-conditioning unit for the US Navy. There is depending on the temperature range. The major
one company (TECA of Chicago, IL) that manu- disadvantage of thermoelectric devices containing

4
Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

these materials is their efficiency. Improving the value of N depends on the symmetry of the crystal
efficiency of these devices requires the development of structure, with higher symmetry crystal structures
materials with higher values of the figure of merit, ZT having larger values of N. In the search for new
(Eqn. (2)). Although many materials have been in- thermoelectric materials, this implies that the crystal
vestigated since 1965, the maximum value for the structure of the compound should be cubic, hexagonal,
dimensionless figure of merit has remained near ZT l or possibly tetragonal. The thermoelectric properties
1. It has been shown theoretically that there is not an of many broad-band semiconductors (including the
upper limit on the maximum value of ZT (Mahan ternary compounds that have been investigated) have
1998). Using reasonable extrapolations of the proper- been reviewed by Wood (1988) and Slack (1995).
ties of known materials, however, it is unlikely that Taken together, phenomenological rules suggest
bulk materials exist with ZT values greater than 4. that within this class of materials, high ZT semi-
A ZT value of 3 would make solid-state dom- conducting compounds should be composed of co-
estic refrigerators economically competitive with valently bonded heavy elements, with a large number
compressor-based refrigeration. of atoms in a unit cell of high symmetry. These rules
The remainder of this article discusses four different provide some guidelines in the search for high ZT
approaches to the development of thermoelectric materials and certainly most of the known ‘‘good’’
materials: (i) binary and ternary covalently bonded thermoelectric materials tend to follow these guide-
semiconductors, (ii) semiconductors with ‘‘rattling’’ lines. For normal broad-band semiconductors these
atoms or molecules, (iii) ‘‘correlated’’ metals or rules suggest compounds made from elements found
semiconductors, and (iv) superlattices and low- in the lower right-hand corner of the periodic table
dimensional systems. (groups 3B to 6B). Using these rules, a ternary
thermoelectric compound with the composition
Tl SnTe has been reported to have thermoelectric
# & similar to Bi Te (Sharp et al. 1999).
properties
It seems unlikely that#the$next generation of thermo-
3.1 ‘‘Normal’’ Broad-band Semiconductors
This class of materials includes the thermoelectric electric materials will be binary compounds or alloys,
compounds and alloys used in state-of-the-art thermo- most of which have been evaluated. This is much like
electric power generators and refrigerators. Histori- superconductivity research before high Tc materials
cally, ‘‘normal’’ semiconductors have received most were found: binary compositions had been essentially
attention in the search to find more efficient thermo- exhausted and ternaries were being evaluated. The
electric compounds. They are well approximated by simplest high Tc materials discovered are ternary alloys
parabolic conduction and valence bands, with the (La VxSrxCuO ) or quaternary compounds (YBa Cu
energy dependence of the carrier scattering time O ).# % # $
described by a power law of the form τ l τ Er. The (
!
exponent r is used to parametrize the type of scattering,
and typically r l V1\2 when the scattering of the
3.2 ‘‘Rattling’’ Semiconductors: Phonon Glasses
carriers is primarily due to acoustic phonons. Within
and Electron Crystals
this approximation it can be shown that maximizing
ZT is equivalent to maximizing Nm*$/#µ\klattice, where The maximum thermoelectric efficiency is achieved
m* is the effective mass of the holes (p-type material) when the lattice contribution to the flow of heat is as
or electrons (n-type material), N is the number of low as possible (Z l S#\ρκ, where κ l κelectronicj
equivalent parabolic bands, and µ is the carrier κlattice). It has been suggested that for a particular
mobility. It is physically plausible— although by no crystal the minimum lattice thermal conductivity, κmin,
means proved—that compounds composed of ele- corresponds to that of an amorphous solid (or glass)
ments that are covalently bonded should have high with the same composition. κmin is reached when the
mobilities. If the elements in a particular compound mean free path of the heat-carrying phonons is of the
are ionically bonded it has been argued that the charge order of the phonon wavelength (Slack 1995). In a
fluctuations from atom to atom in the compound will beautiful set of experiments it has been demonstrated
tend to reduce carrier mobility. that κmin can be attained in crystalline compounds
All of the known good thermoelectric materials with specific types of controlled disorder (Cahill et al.
have electronic band structures that are ‘‘multi- 1992). It is found that localized vibrational or
valleyed.’’ This means that the maximum in the valence rotational modes (Einstein oscillators) provide a par-
band and the minimum in the conduction band occur ticularly effective way of reducing the thermal con-
away from the center of the Brillouin zone. The ductivity of a crystalline solid to within 50% of κmin at
conduction bands of silicon, for example, are com- room temperature. For example, in (KBr) Vx(KCN)x
posed of six equivalent bands located along f100g "
single crystals κlattice values near κmin are obtained for
axes. Therefore, the conduction band of silicon is x values as small as 0.19. The rotation of the CN
‘‘multivalleyed’’ with a degeneracy of 6, implying that molecule about its lattice site effectively scatters the
N l 6. It can be shown that the maximum possible heat-carrying phonons at temperatures greater than

5
Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

10 K. By way of contrast, simple mass fluctuation the Fermi level) and nonparabolic, and the carrier
scattering, such as occurs in KCl VxBrx mixed crystals, scattering time is not described by a simple power law
only reduces κlattice to 4κmin. " in the carrier energy but is closer to resonant scattering.
The ultimate thermoelectric material should con- Theoretical support for these types of materials has
duct electricity like a crystal but heat like a glass. been demonstrated (Mahan and Sofo 1996). In a very
Crystal structures that contain weakly bound atoms or general theoretical analysis it was shown that the best
molecules that ‘‘rattle’’ within an atomic cage will electronic structure for thermoelectric materials is a
likely have a low lattice thermal conductivity. Since delta function in the transport distribution centered
good electrical properties must be maintained, there about 2kBT to 3kBT from the Fermi energy. The
should be at least three distinct crystallographic sites transport distribution is defined to include the density
in the structure, i.e., a true ternary compound. Two of of states and the energy-dependent scattering time. It
the sites would form the basic framework of the struc- is noted, however, that if there is a parallel ‘‘normal’’
ture, and this framework would dominate the band channel for carrier conduction (a broad metallic
structure and therefore electronic transport. The third band), then the values of ZT rapidly drop with only a
cage-like site would be occupied by the ‘‘rattling’’ small contribution from this ‘‘normal’’ density of
atom that scatters the heat-carrying phonons, thus states. Unusual correlated semiconductors (also
greatly reducing the lattice portion of the thermal termed hybridization gap or Kondo insulators) may
conductivity. represent a closer approximation to the ideal electronic
These ideas have been demonstrated for two classes structure suggested by Mahan and Sofo (1996). In a
of materials, the filled skutterudite antimonides and correlated semiconductor the electron states near the
semiconducting analogues of the ice clathrate struc- gap retain much of their free-atom character. Several
ture. The filled skutterudite antimonides are cubic of these correlated metals and semiconductors have
compounds with typical composition LaFe Sb . This been investigated but ZT values are below 0.25.
structure can be described as consisting %of "#square A very general and simple analysis shows that for a
planar rings of four antimony atoms with the rings correlated metal to be a viable thermoelectric material
lying in the (100), (010), or (001) crystallographic (defined as ZT l 1), the Seebeck coefficient must be
planes. The iron atoms form a simple cubic sublattice greater than 156 µV KV". Recall that ZT l TS#\κρ,
and the lanthanum atoms are positioned in the two where κ l κelectronicjκlattice. The largest value of ZT
remaining ‘‘cages’’ in the unit cell. X-ray and neutron occurs when the lattice contribution can be ignored so
structure refinements indicate that the lanthanum that κ l κelectronic. ZT is then equal to TS#\ρκelectronic.
atoms tend to exhibit exceptionally large thermal For a metal, the Wiedemann–Franz law states that
parameters corresponding to the ‘‘rattling’’ of these ρκelectronic\T l L , where L is a constant (2.44i
atoms in an oversized atomic cage. The rattling 10V) VV# KV#). The ! !
Wiedemann–Franz law is sur-
lanthanum atoms result in a large reduction of the prisingly general, and theory shows that it even applies
lattice thermal conductivity. The values obtained for for correlated metals. Therefore, ZT  S#\L , which
ZT at elevated temperatures for these materials are implies that for ZT l 1 the minimum value! of S is
comparable to the best values reported for any 156 µV KV". The correlated metal with the highest
material (ZT l 1.4) (Sales et al. 1996). The semi- reported Seebeck coefficient is CePd , which has a
conducting clathrates have typical composition Sr maximum value of 115 µV KV" at 125 K. $
Ga Ge (Nolas et al. 1998). In these compounds the)
"' $! atoms rattle in an oversized atomic cage
strontium
resulting in a glass-like thermal conductivity. Good
electronic transport is achieved through the Ge–Ga
3.4 Superlattices and Low-dimensional Materials
tetrahedral network. These materials also appear to
have large values of ZT at elevated temperature. Theoretical calculations indicate that semiconductor
quantum wells should have an improved figure of
merit. This conjecture has been confirmed experimen-
tally (Hicks et al. 1996), and it is found that ZT for a
single quantum well increases as the well width
3.3 Correlated Metals and Semiconductors
decreases. The enhancement of ZT arises from an
As is shown in Fig. 1, ‘‘normal’’ metals are poor increase of the electronic density of states. The model
thermoelectrics owing to a low Seebeck coefficient and has been tested using PbTe quantum wells confined by
a large electronic contribution to the total thermal Pb . Eu . Te barrier layers. The electrons are con-
conductivity. The approximations used to generate ! *#(to quantum
fined ! !($ wells with thicknesses ranging from
Fig. 1, however, are not valid for many rare earth 17 A to 55 AH . An increase by a factor of five is found
H
intermetallic compounds (usually containing cerium in S#σ relative to bulk PbTe of the same volume. Using
or ytterbium) in which the 4f level is near the Fermi the thermal conductivity of bulk PbTe as a con-
energy. For these materials, the 4f ‘‘bands’’ are very servative estimate for the quantum well, a value of ZT
narrow (resulting in a very high density of states near l 2 can be estimated within a single well. This novel

6
Thermoelectric Devices: Refrigeration and Power Generations With No Moving Parts

approach has spurred new activity into these types of confirmation of these intriguing calculations (see
devices. Research has extended these ideas to the Magnetocaloric Effect : From Theory to Practice).
investigation of quantum wires and other low-dimen-
See also: Demagnetization : Nuclear and Adiabatic;
sional structures as possible advanced thermoelectric
Magnetocaloric Effect : From Theory to Practice
materials.

Bibliography
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thermal conductivity of disordered crystals. Phys. ReŠ. B 46,
4. Thermionic Refrigeration 6131–40
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A solid-state refrigeration device based on thermionic
Hicks L D, Harmon T C, Sun X, Dresselhaus M S 1996
emission has been proposed (Mahan and Woods Experimental study of the effect of quantum-well structures
1998). Although technically these are not thermo- on the thermoelectric figure of merit. Phys. ReŠ. B 53, 10493–6
electric devices, there are many similarities between a Mahan G D 1998 Good thermoelectrics. Solid State Phys. 51,
thermoelectric and a thermionic refrigerator—par- 81–157
ticularly with regard to the material properties needed. Mahan G D, Sofo J O 1996 The best thermoelectric. Proc. Natl.
Thermionic refrigeration is a solid-state process based Acad. Sci. USA 93, 7436–9
on evaporative cooling. A barrier is imposed to the Mahan G D, Woods L M 1998 Multilayer thermionic refriger-
flow of electrons (or holes). Those electrons (holes) ation. Phys. ReŠ. Lett. 80, 4016–19
Nolas G S, Cohn J L, Slack G A, Schujman S B 1998 Semi-
that have sufficient kinetic energy to surmount the
conducting Ge clathrates—promising candidates for thermo-
barrier are swept away by a small voltage. A system electric applications. Appl. Phys. Lett. 73, 178–80
cools if its most energetic particles are removed from Rowe D M (ed.) 1995 CRC Handbook of Thermoelectrics.
the system. A practical thermionic refrigerator is Chemical Rubber Press, Boca Raton, FL
envisioned to consist of a metal–semiconductor supe- Sales B C, Mandrus D, Williams R W 1996 Filled skutterudite
rlattice. A Schottky barrier at the metal–semicon- antimonides: a new class of thermoelectric materials. Science
ductor interface of about 0.05 eV is required for 272, 1325–8
efficient operation near room temperature. Electrons Sharp J W, Sales B C, Chakoumakos B C, Mandrus D 1999
from the metal with sufficient kinetic energy to Thermoelectric properties of Tl SnTe and Tl GeTe . Appl.
Phys. Lett. 74, 3794–6
# & # &
surmount the small barrier are ballistically transported
Slack G A 1995 New materials and performance limits for
across the thin semiconducting layer using a small thermoelectric cooling. In: Rowe D M (ed.) CRC Handbook of
voltage. As is the case for a thermoelectric refrigerator, Thermoelectric Materials. Chemical Rubber Press, Boca
the thermal conductivity of the semiconductor mate- Raton, FL, pp. 407–40
rial must be low to prevent substantial backflow of Wood C 1988 Materials for thermoelectric energy conversion.
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greater than 2. There has been no experimental B. C. Sales

Copyright ' 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted
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otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Encyclopedia of Materials : Science and Technology
ISBN: 0-08-0431526
pp. 9179–9186

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