NER: Bipolar Quantum Dot Thermoelectric Devices

提案ID：508225标题：NER：双极量子点热电器件Inst：U。关于PengganPI：Kevin Pipe摘要热电制冷器由于其相当的效率、更小的尺寸/重量和更高的可靠性，正迅速成为传统蒸汽压缩（家用）冰箱的可行替代品。 此外，热电冷却器具有尺寸缩小以冷却诸如集成电路的小型装置的能力，并且可以可逆地操作以从热源产生电力。 用于量化热电材料的效率的度量是品质因数ZT，对于最好的热电材料，其在过去50年中几乎保持恒定在ZT=1。 然而，在过去的几年里，对具有特殊定制特性的纳米结构材料的研究已经证明ZT值超过2。在这项工作中，我们将探索一种新的效应，这种效应最近被证明可以提高纳米级的热电性能。 测量表明，简单的二极管结构（电子器件的基本构建块）在定义器件的内部半导体双极结附近具有很强的热电效应。 我们将利用这一效应，创造一种纳米结构的热电材料，其中双极结散布在整个材料与量子点的界面处，导致材料热电性能的净增加。 我们将使用几种方法来测量这些量子点双极结的存在如何影响纳米尺度上的热电性能，以及它们如何影响材料的整体ZT。

Proposal ID: 508225Title: NER: Bipolar Quantum Dot Thermoelectric DevicesInst: U. of MichiganPI: Kevin PipeABSTRACTThermoelectric coolers are rapidly becoming a viable alternative to conventional vapor-compression (household) refrigerators due to their comparable efficiency, smaller size/weight, and higher reliability. In addition, thermoelectric coolers have the capability to be scaled down in size to cool small devices such as integrated circuits, and can be operated reversibly to generate electrical power from a heat source. The metric used to quantify the efficiency of a thermoelectric material is the figure-of-merit ZT, which for the best thermoelectric materials has remained nearly constant at ZT=1 for the last 50 years. In the last several years, however, research into nanostructured materials that have specially-tailored properties has demonstrated ZT values of more than 2.In this work, we will explore a new effect that has recently been shown to increase thermoelectric performance at the nanoscale. Measurements indicate that simple diode structures (a basic building block of electronic devices) have strong thermoelectric effects near the internal semiconductor bipolar junction that defines the device. We will take advantage of this effect by creating a nanostructured thermoelectric material in which bipolar junctions are interspersed throughout the material at interfaces with quantum dots, causing a net increase in the thermoelectric performance of the material. We will use several methods to measure how the presence of these quantum dot bipolar junctions affects thermoelectric properties on a nanometer scale as well as how they affect the overall ZT of the material.