Rational Synthesis of Ultrathin n-Type Bi2Te3 Nanowires with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties

• DOI: 10.1021/nl202935k
• Publication Date: 2011-11-23T15:47:41Z
• Authors: Genqiang Zhang; Benjamin Kirk; Luis A. Jauregui; Haoran Yang; Xianfan Xu; Yong P. Chen; Yue Wu
• Keywords: Spark Plasma Sintering; Phonon scattering; Hot pressing

A rational yet scalable solution phase method has been established, for the first time, to obtain n-type Bi2Te3 ultrathin nanowires with an average diameter of 8 nm in high yield (up 93%). Thermoelectric properties bulk pellets fabricated by compressing nanowire powder through spark plasma sintering have investigated. Compared current commercial Bi2Te3-based materials, our devices exhibit enhanced ZT 0.96 peaked at 380 K due a significant reduction thermal conductivity derived from phonon scattering nanoscale interfaces pellets, which corresponds 13% enhancement compared that best Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 single crystals (∼0.85) and is comparable reported result sample (ZT = 1.04) hot pressing ball-milled powder. The uniformity provide promising route make contributions manufacture nanotechnology-based thermoelectric power generation solid-state cooling superior performance reliable reproducible way.