State-of-the-Art Reviews and Analyses of Emerging Research Findings and Achievements of Thermoelectric Materials over the Past Years

• Published in: Journal of electronic materials 2019-02, Vol.48 (2), p.745-777
• Main Authors: Selvan, Krishna Veni, Hasan, Md Nazibul, Mohamed Ali, Mohamed Sultan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bismuth tellurides; Chalcogenides; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Conducting polymers; Electronics and Microelectronics; Instrumentation; Materials Science; Optical and Electronic Materials; Quantum wells; Quantum wires; Solid State Physics; State-of-the-art reviews; Statistical analysis; Thermoelectric materials
• ISSN: 0361-5235; 1543-186X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11664-018-06838-4

This review is focused on state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials (or thermoelements), from which the thermoelements with the highest figures of merit ( z ) along with the those having the greatest research interest and findings were surveyed and analyzed. These were in addition to the statistical analyses made in this review for categorizing z achievement ranges for all types of thermoelements. Almost 56% of positive thermoelements and 39.6% of negative thermoelements were discovered from 1950 to 2017, and a total of 62.2% of thermoelement research findings were reported in 2010–2017. Furthermore, nearly 47.65% of the discovered thermoelements preserved z in the range of 1–4.99 × 10 −3  K −1 , and only about 2.52% possessed less than 9.9 × 10 −6 K −1 . Chalcogenide was the major type of thermoelement studied to date, with overall representation of 37.2%. Nearly 68.9% of chalcogenide thermoelements were capable of reach 1–4.99 × 10 −3  K −1 , while 53% of metal oxide thermoelements ranged within 0.1–0.499 × 10 −3  K −1 . Nanostructure thermoelements achieved the highest z of 47 × 10 −3  K −1 and 17 × 10 −3  K −1 at 300 K, for Bi 2 Te 3 quantum wires and Bi 2 Te 3 quantum wells, respectively. Correspondingly, hybrid and conducting polymer thermoelements also reached z as high as 16 × 10 −3  K −1 at 300 K for positive thermoelement: nano-Ag/regioregular poly(3-octylthiophene-2,5-diyl) and negative thermoelement: graphdiyne.