Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon

Qing Hao; Gaohua Zhu; Giri Joshi; Xiaowei Wang; Austin Minnich; Zhifeng Ren; Gang Chen

doi:10.1063/1.3478459

Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon

Qing Hao, Gaohua Zhu, Giri Joshi, Xiaowei Wang, Austin Minnich, Zhifeng Ren, Gang Chen

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the phonon transport in silicon nanocomposites using Monte Carlo simulations considering frequency-dependent phonon mean free paths, and combine the phonon modeling with electron modeling to predict the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of silicon nanocomposites. The model shows that while grain interface scattering of phonons is negligible for large grain sizes around 200 nm, ZT can reach 1.0 at 1173 K if the grain size can be reduced to 10 nm. Our results show the potential of obtaining a high ZT in bulk silicon by the nanocomposite approach.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	063109
Journal	Applied Physics Letters
Volume	97
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3478459
State	Published - Aug 9 2010
Externally published	Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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title = "Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon",

abstract = "In this paper, we investigate the phonon transport in silicon nanocomposites using Monte Carlo simulations considering frequency-dependent phonon mean free paths, and combine the phonon modeling with electron modeling to predict the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of silicon nanocomposites. The model shows that while grain interface scattering of phonons is negligible for large grain sizes around 200 nm, ZT can reach 1.0 at 1173 K if the grain size can be reduced to 10 nm. Our results show the potential of obtaining a high ZT in bulk silicon by the nanocomposite approach.",

author = "Qing Hao and Gaohua Zhu and Giri Joshi and Xiaowei Wang and Austin Minnich and Zhifeng Ren and Gang Chen",

note = "Funding Information: The authors greatly appreciate the help from Dr. Ming-Shan Jeng, Dr. Taofang Zeng, and Dr. Bhaskaran Muralidharan. The work is funded by DOE under Grants No. DE-FG02-00ER45805 (Z.F.R.) and No. DE-SC0001299 (G.C.). ",

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T1 - Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon

AU - Hao, Qing

AU - Zhu, Gaohua

AU - Joshi, Giri

AU - Wang, Xiaowei

AU - Minnich, Austin

AU - Ren, Zhifeng

AU - Chen, Gang

N1 - Funding Information: The authors greatly appreciate the help from Dr. Ming-Shan Jeng, Dr. Taofang Zeng, and Dr. Bhaskaran Muralidharan. The work is funded by DOE under Grants No. DE-FG02-00ER45805 (Z.F.R.) and No. DE-SC0001299 (G.C.).

PY - 2010/8/9

Y1 - 2010/8/9

N2 - In this paper, we investigate the phonon transport in silicon nanocomposites using Monte Carlo simulations considering frequency-dependent phonon mean free paths, and combine the phonon modeling with electron modeling to predict the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of silicon nanocomposites. The model shows that while grain interface scattering of phonons is negligible for large grain sizes around 200 nm, ZT can reach 1.0 at 1173 K if the grain size can be reduced to 10 nm. Our results show the potential of obtaining a high ZT in bulk silicon by the nanocomposite approach.

AB - In this paper, we investigate the phonon transport in silicon nanocomposites using Monte Carlo simulations considering frequency-dependent phonon mean free paths, and combine the phonon modeling with electron modeling to predict the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of silicon nanocomposites. The model shows that while grain interface scattering of phonons is negligible for large grain sizes around 200 nm, ZT can reach 1.0 at 1173 K if the grain size can be reduced to 10 nm. Our results show the potential of obtaining a high ZT in bulk silicon by the nanocomposite approach.

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Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon

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