Fundamental and Progress of Bi2Te3-based Thermoelectric Materials

TL;DR

This review discusses the fundamental principles, recent progress, and strategies for improving the thermoelectric performance of Bi2Te3-based materials, emphasizing defect engineering, nanostructuring, and modeling insights to guide future developments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental mechanisms, material parameters, and enhancement strategies for Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric materials, integrating experimental and modeling approaches.

Findings

Enhanced thermoelectric performance through defect engineering and nanostructuring.

Understanding of anisotropic behavior and bipolar conduction effects.

Progress in reducing thermal conductivity using various nanostructure fabrication methods.

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials, enabling the directing conversion between heat and electricity, are one of the promising candidates for overcoming environmental pollution and the upcoming energy shortage caused by the over-consumption of fossil fuels. Bi2Te3-based alloys are the classical thermoelectric materials working near room temperature. Due to the intensive theoretical investigations and experimental demonstrations, significant progress has been achieved to enhance the thermoelectric performance of Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric materials. In this review, we first explored the fundamentals of thermoelectric effect and derived the equations for thermoelectric properties. On this basis, we studied the effect of material parameters on thermoelectric properties. Then, we analyzed the features of Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric materials, including the lattice defects, anisotropic behavior and the strong bipolar conduction at relatively high temperature. Then we accordingly summarized the strategies for enhancing the thermoelectric performance, including point defect engineering, texture alignment, and band gap enlargement. Moreover, we highlighted the progress in decreasing thermal conductivity using nanostructures fabricated by solution grown method, ball milling, and melt spinning. Lastly, we employed modeling analysis to uncover the principles of anisotropy behavior and the achieved enhancement in Bi2Te3, which will enlighten the enhancement of thermoelectric performance in broader materials.