Effect of surface micro- and nanolayers of composite particles on thermoelectric figure of merit (phenomenological approach)

TL;DR

This paper investigates how micro- and nanolayers on composite particle surfaces influence the thermoelectric figure of merit, showing potential for significant improvements through surface engineering.

Contribution

It introduces non-symmetric self-consistent field theory variants to analyze the impact of surface layers on thermoelectric performance.

Findings

Surface layers can significantly enhance thermoelectric figure of merit.

Theoretical models predict improvements due to shell presence.

Surface engineering offers a pathway to optimize thermoelectric materials.

Abstract

Non-symmetric variants of self-consistent field theory are proposed that served the basis for theoretical investigation of the effect of thermal conductivity of composite particles surface layers on the effective thermoelectric figure of merit. It is shown that in some cases thermoelectric figure of merit can be essentially improved due to the presence of a shell.