Date of Award

1-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Legacy Department

Materials Science and Engineering

Committee Chair/Advisor

DRYMIOTIS, FIVOS R

Committee Member

LUO , JIAN

Committee Member

SKAAR , ERIC C

Abstract

Sustainable energy research is currently on the forefront of scientific exploration thus a major effort is devoted to the development of new energy conservation and production techniques. Thermoelectric materials can play a significant part both in energy conservation and energy production via the Seebeck effect (heat to electric power) and the Peltier effect (electricity to cooling power), since they can convert wasted heat to useful electrical energy.
Presented herein are the measured electrical and thermal transport properties and phenomenal analysis of the PbTeAgxSe (x=1.9, 2.0, 2.01) system. First, it would lead to a significant reduction in the thermal conductivity and a significant improvement of the thermoelectric through adjusting amount of Ag, which is able to monitor the effects of phase competition between the cubic PbSe and the monoclinic α-Ag2Te. In order to further optimize thermoelectric performance, a small amount of copper is chosen to dope into this system. Finally, the maximum thermoelectric performance obtained in Pb:Te:Ag:Se:Cu mixtures is ZT~0.6, which improves approximately 30% in contrast to maxium ZT~0.45 of Pb:Te:Ag:Se mixtures.

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