Rational Synthesis of Ultrathin n-Type Bi2Te3 Nanowires with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties
Abstract
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 to 93%). Thermoelectric properties of bulk pellets fabricated by compressing the nanowire powder through spark plasma sintering have been investigated. Compared to the current commercial n-type Bi2Te3-based bulk materials, our nanowire devices exhibit an enhanced ZT of 0.96 peaked at 380 K due to a significant reduction of thermal conductivity derived from phonon scattering at the nanoscale interfaces in the bulk pellets, which corresponds to a 13% enhancement compared to that of the best n-type commercial Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 single crystals (similar to 0.85)and is comparable to the best reported result of n-type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 sample (ZT = 1.04) fabricated by the hot pressing of ball-milled powder. The uniformity and high yield of the nanowires provide a promising route to make significant contributions to the manufacture of nanotechnology-based thermoelectric power generation and solid-state cooling devices with superior performance in a reliable and a reproducible way.
Keywords
Bi2Te3; nanowires; thermoelectric; spark plasma sintering; QUALITY SINGLE-CRYSTALS; BISMUTH TELLURIDE; TRANSPORT-PROPERTIES; THERMAL-PROPERTIES; SOLUTION-PHASE; MERIT; NANOPARTICLES; FIGURE; SURFACE
DOI
10.1021/nl202935k
Citation
Nano Lett., 2012, 12 (1), pp 56–60 DOI: 10.1021/nl202935k
Date of this Version
11-23-2011
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Genqiang; Kirk, Benjamin; Jauregui, Luis A.; Yang, Haoran; Xu, Xianfan; Chen, Yong P.; and Wu, Yue, "Rational Synthesis of Ultrathin n-Type Bi2Te3 Nanowires with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties" (2011). Birck and NCN Publications. Paper 1307.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl202935k