New horizons in thermoelectric materials: Correlated electrons, organic transport, machine learning, and more
New horizons in thermoelectric materials: Correlated electrons, organic transport, machine learning, and more
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DOI：
10.1063/1.5092525
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发表时间：
2019-05-14
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Hippalgaonkar, Kedar
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Urban, Jeffrey J.;Menon, Akanksha K.;Hippalgaonkar, Kedar
热电代表了能源中将热能或二次废热直接转换为一次资源的独特机会。几十年来，热电材料的发展是飞跃式的，而不是渐进式的，每一次飞跃都概括了当时的科学：从半导体的晶体生长到可控掺杂，再到纳米结构，再到二维限制。可以说，这些飞跃中的每一个都是材料科学而不是物理学的结果。热电学现在已经成熟，可以进行另一次飞跃，许多可能的进步依赖于热电学标准能带传输模型之外的新物理。这一观点将涵盖热电如何从物理学的新发现中受益的有限选择：声子传输中的波效应，相关电子物理学和有机材料中的非常规传输。我们还强调了在机器学习的帮助下热电发现的最新发展，这可能是实际实现这些新概念所需要的。展望未来，发展新的热电物理学也将对邻近领域产生多米诺骨牌效应，进一步了解新材料中的非平衡热和电子输运。
Thermoelectrics represent a unique opportunity in energy to directly convert thermal energy or secondary waste heat into a primary resource. The development of thermoelectric materials has improved over the decades in leaps, rather than by incrementseach leap forward has recapitulated the science of its time: from the crystal growth of semiconductors, to controlled doping, to nanostructuring, and to 2D confinement. Each of those leaps forward was, arguably, more a result of materials science than physics. Thermoelectrics is now ripe for another leap forward, and many probable advances rely on new physics outside of the standard band transport model of thermoelectrics. This perspective will cover a limited selection of how thermoelectrics can benefit from new discoveries in physics: wave effects in phonon transport, correlated electron physics, and unconventional transport in organic materials. We also highlight recent developments in thermoelectrics discovery aided by machine learning that may be needed to realize some of these new concepts practically. Looking ahead, developing new thermoelectric physics will also have a concomitant domino effect on adjacent fields, furthering the understanding of nonequilibrium thermal and electronic transport in novel materials.