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Published on: February 5, 2020
Charge transfer engineering to achieve extraordinary power generation in GeTe-based thermoelectric materials
Chengyan Liu1, Zhongwei Zhang2, Ying Peng3,4
1Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials, Engineering Research Center of Electronic Information Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China.
Abstract:
By the fine manipulation of the exceptional long-range germanium-telluride (Ge─Te) bonding through charge transfer engineering, we have achieved exceptional thermoelectric (TE) and mechanical properties in lead-free GeTe. This chemical bonding mechanism along with a semiordered zigzag nanostructure generates a notable increase of the average zT to a record value of ~1.73 in the temperature range of 323 to 773 K with ultrahigh maximum zT ~ 2.7. In addition, we significantly enhanced the Vickers microhardness numbers (Hv) to an extraordinarily high value of 247 Hv and effectively eliminated the thermal expansion fluctuation at the phase transition, which was problematic for application, by the present charge transfer engineering process and concomitant formation of microstructures. We further fabricated a single-leg TE generator and obtained a conversion efficiency of ~13.4% at the temperature difference of 463 K on a commercial instrument, which is located at the pinnacle of TE conversion.
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