Structure study of bulk nanograined thermoelectric bismuth antimony telluride.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 19243189.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/nl803235n.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
The microstructures of bulk nanograined p-type bismuth antimony telluride with a thermoelectric dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT = 1.4 are investigated using transmission electron microscopy. It is found that the bulk material contains both nano- and microsized grains. Between the nanograins, bismuth-rich interface regions with a 4 nm thickness were detected. In addition, nanoprecipitates as well as other defects are also found to be embedded in the nanograins. The high ZT is attributed to the slight increase in the electrical conductivity, and to the large decrease of the thermal conductivity.