Abstract
Thermoelectric materials can be used for power generation and heating or cooling applications. The figure of merit (ZT) of thermoelectric materials, which determines their efficiency in a thermoelectric device, remains low for most bulk materials. Nanoscale and nanostructured thermoelectric materials are promising for increasing ZT relative to the bulk. Based on the characters of thermoelectric materials, we need a material or structure with low thermal conductivity and high electrical conductivity to enhance the ZT. Therefore, we provide a new idea. In our structure, we can even neglect the thermal conductivity of phonons with discontinuous structure. Besides, we add different materials into the gap in order to improve the thermoelectric effect. We show that the Seebeck coefficient can be higher with narrower gap. Besides, we add nano particles into the gap and it is found that the Seebeck voltage can increase over 10 times than that without nano particle in the gap. Different from other researches, the Seebeck coefficient we measured can reach the order of mV/K so we call it “Giant thermoelectric effect.”