Materials science: The matryoshka effect
Materials science: The matryoshka effect
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材料科学：俄罗斯套娃效应
作者：
T. Nilges
通过在几个不同的长度尺度上定制块状材料的结构，半导体将热量转化为电压的能力已经优化到一个突破性的性能水平。见信第414页热电材料提供了将热能转化为电能的方法，反之亦然。在这里，作者定制了块状热电材料的结构，半导体碲化铅，以最大限度地提高热电性能。他们在三种不同的长度尺度上实现声子散射。原子尺度的掺杂、纳米尺度的内源性沉淀和中尺度的晶界结构被引入到材料中，从而大大降低了其导热性，并随后获得了非常高的热电性能。这些进步有助于设计先进的热电材料，用于回收废热。
By tailoring the architecture of a bulk material at several different length scales, the ability of a semiconductor to convert heat into voltage has been optimized to a groundbreaking level of performance. See Letter p.414 Thermoelectric materials offer ways to transform heat to electrical energy and vice versa. Here, the authors tailor the architecture of a bulk thermoelectric material, the semiconductor lead telluride, to maximize thermoelectric performance. They achieve phonon scattering on three different length scales. Atomic-scale doping, nanometer-scale endotaxial precipitation and mesoscale grain-boundary structures were introduced to the material to drastically reduce its thermal conductivity and subsequently achieve a very high thermoelectric figure of merit. These advances could aid in the design of advanced thermoelectric materials that can be used to recover waste heat.