Effect of Nanostructuring on the Thermoelectric Properties of β-FeSi.

Nanostructured β-FeSi and β-FeCoSi specimens with a relative density of up to 95% were synthesized by combining a top-down approach and spark plasma sintering. The thermoelectric properties of a 50 nm crystallite size β-FeSi sample were compared to those of an annealed one, and for the former a strong decrease in lattice thermal conductivity and an upshift of the maximum Seebeck's coefficient were shown, resulting in an improvement of the figure of merit by a factor of 1.7 at 670 K.

Elucidating the Sound Absorption Characteristics of Foxtail Millet () Husk.

The current study deals with the analysis of sound absorption characteristics of foxtail millet husk powder. Noise is one the most persistent pollutants which has to be dealt seriously. Foxtail millet is a small seeded cereal cultivated across the world and its husk is less explored for its utilization in polymer composites.

Ultraflexible Glassy Semiconductor Fibers for Thermal Sensing and Positioning.

Flexible, large-area, and low-cost thermal sensing networks with high spatial and temporal resolution are of profound importance in addressing the increasing needs for industrial processing, medical diagnosis, and military defense. Here, a thermoelectric (TE) fiber is fabricated by thermally codrawing a macroscopic preform containing a semiconducting glass core and a polymer cladding to deliver thermal sensor functionalities at fiber-optic length scales, flexibility, and uniformity. The resulting TE fiber sensor operates in a wide temperature range with high thermal detection sensitivity and accuracy, while offering ultraflexibility with the bending curvature radius below 2.

Detrimental Effects of Doping Al and Ba on the Thermoelectric Performance of GeTe.

GeTe-based materials are emerging as viable alternatives to toxic PbTe-based thermoelectric materials. In order to evaluate the suitability of Al as dopant in thermoelectric GeTe, a systematic study of thermoelectric properties of GeAlTe ( = 0⁻0.08) alloys processed by Spark Plasma Sintering are presented here.

Effect of the Processing Route on the Thermoelectric Performance of Nanostructured CuPbSbTe.

The quaternary AgPbSbTe compound (abbreviated as LAST) is a prominent thermoelectric material with good performance. Endotaxially embedded nanoscale Ag-rich precipitates contribute significantly to decreased lattice thermal conductivity (κ) in LAST alloys. In this work, Ag in LAST alloys was completely replaced by the more economically available Cu.

Thermoelectric Properties of Highly-Crystallized Ge-Te-Se Glasses Doped with Cu/Bi.

Chalcogenide semiconducting systems are of growing interest for mid-temperature range (~500 K) thermoelectric applications. In this work, GeTeSe₃ glasses were intentionally crystallized by doping with Cu and Bi. These effectively-crystallized materials of composition (GeTeSe₃)M (M = Cu or Bi; = 5, 10, 15), obtained by vacuum-melting and quenching techniques, were found to have multiple crystalline phases and exhibit increased electrical conductivity due to excess hole concentration.