Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/08/2022
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Title: Overview of Thermoelectric Phenomena andSelection Criteria Thermoelectric Nanocomposites: Potential TE Materials

Date: Monday, August 8, 2022

Time: 1:30-2:30

 Room: ABB A204

 Zoom: Please contact chemgrad@mcmaster.ca for Zoom details. 

Host: Yurij Mozharivskyj

 Abstract: This talk will present an introduction tothermoelectric (TE) phenomena and the challenges that these materials presentto the researcher along with an overview of several former and currentapplications. The first part of this talk is especially geared to introducingthe graduate students that are new to the field to the terminology, pertinentequations, materials properties and requirements related to good thermoelectricmaterials.  Recently, there has been an ever-increasing research effort onTE nanocomposite materials that comprise of a mixture of bulk thermoelectricmaterials with nanoparticles incorporated within the bulk matrix.  One ofthe main goals is to have additional design or tuning parameters for materials(such as dimensionality) that may be used to manipulate and control the phononscattering mechanisms, without significantly deteriorating the electricaltransport properties. The ability to decouple the electron and phononscattering mechanisms in a given material, is very important in the developmentof higher efficiency TE materials. The goal therein is that the figure ofmerit, ZT, can be ZT > 1 and eventually approach values of ZT ? 2-3! Therole of phonons in these nanocomposites may be one of the most importantparameters to understand in these novel materials. A discussion of previousresults from about a decade ago in nanocomposite TE materials that are fromseveral research groups, including my own, will be presented. The discussionson our work will primarily focus on several materials with various nano-inclusionsalong with previous results on melt spun p-type (Bi, Sb)₂Te₃materials performed in collaboration with our colleagues at the WuhanUniversity of Technology. Acknowledgements to the many people contributing tothe work will be given in the talk.