Date of Award

1-1-2012

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Program

Nanoscale Sciences

Content Description

1 online resource (xii, 121 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Harry Efstathiadis

Committee Members

Pradeep Haldar, Hassaram Bakhru, Mengbing Huang, Michael Hennessy

Keywords

Metal Oxide, Quantum Well, Thermoelectrics, Thermoelectric materials, Heat recovery, Quantum wells, Superlattices as materials

Subject Categories

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology | Oil, Gas, and Energy

Abstract

Waste heat recovery from low efficiency industrial processes requires high performance thermoelectric materials to meet challenging requirements. The efficiency such a device is quantified by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT=S2σT/қ, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, σ is the electrical conductivity, T is the absolute temperature and қ is the thermal conductivity. For practical applications these devices are only cost-effective if the ZT is higher than 2.

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