The influence of phonon thermal conductivity on thermoelectric figure of merit of bulk nanostructured materials with tunneling contacts

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how the phonon thermal conductivity of dielectric barriers affects the thermoelectric efficiency of nanostructured composites with tunneling contacts, identifying conditions for high figure of merit.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model analyzing the impact of dielectric phonon thermal conductivity on thermoelectric performance in nanostructured composites with tunneling barriers.

Findings

Conditions for figure of merit > 1 are identified.

Range of barrier parameters for optimal thermoelectric performance is estimated.

Effects of space charge and nonlinear tunneling are discussed.

Abstract

A composite material is considered which consists of conducting nanoparticles separated by tunneling dielectric barriers. The influence of the phonon thermal conductivity of dielectric matrix on the thermoelectric figure of merit of this composite material is theoretically in-vestigated. The range of values and barrier parameters that can lead to the thermoelectric figure of merit greater than unity is estimated. The influence of space charge and nonlinearity of current-voltage relations of tunneling barrier are also discussed.