Abstract
The use of advanced materials has resulted in a significant improvement in thermoelectric device conversion efficiency. Three-stage cascade devices were assembled, consisting of nano-bulk Bi2Te3-based materials on the cold side, PbTe and enhanced TAGS-85 [(AgSbTe2)15(GeTe)85] for the mid-stage, and half-Heusler alloys for the high-temperature top stage. In addition, an area aspect ratio optimization process was applied in order to account for asymmetric thermal transport down the individual n- and p-legs. The n- and p-type chalcogenide alloy materials were prepared by high-energy mechanical ball-milling and/or cryogenic ball-milling of elementary powders, with subsequent consolidation by high-pressure uniaxial hot-pressing. The low-temperature stage materials, nano-bulk Bi2Te3−x Sb x and Bi2Te3−x Se x , exhibit a unique mixture of nanoscale features that leads to an enhanced Seebeck coefficient and reduced lattice thermal conductivity, thereby achieving an average ZT of ~1.26 and ~1.7 in the 27°C to 100°C range for the n-type and p-type materials, respectively. Also, the addition of small amounts of selected rare earth elements has been shown to improve the ZT of TAGS-85 by 25%, compared with conventional or neat TAGS-85, resulting in a ZT = 1.5 at 400°C. The incorporation of these improved materials resulted in a peak device conversion efficiency of ~20% at a temperature difference of 750°C when corrected for radiation heat losses and thermal conduction losses through the lead wires. These high-efficiency results were shown to be reproducible across multiple cascade devices.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the technical support of Dr. David Stokes, Mr. Gordon Krueger, and Ms. Judith Stuart at RTI International for the power testing and Q-meter measurements. This work was supported by DARPA/DSO Army Contract No. W911NF-08-C-0058.
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Cook, B.A., Chan, T.E., Dezsi, G. et al. High-Performance Three-Stage Cascade Thermoelectric Devices with 20% Efficiency. J. Electron. Mater. 44, 1936–1942 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-014-3600-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-014-3600-9