2014/01/31 by Kai Wu, Louk Rademaker, Jan Zaanen
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #Bilayer #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Electricity #Exciton #Figure of merit #Machine Learning in Materials Science #Nanostructure #Seebeck coefficient #Temperature gradient #Thermoelectric effect #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevapplied.2.054013
published as Phys. Rev. Applied.2.054013(2014) · 7 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2014/08/26 · openalex publication_date 2014/11/25 · arxiv updated 2014/12/10 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Generating electricity from a temperature gradient (due to waste heat from an engine or power plant, say) is seen as a significant aspect of the energy economy. Here the authors propose a thermoelectric device that takes advantage of bilayer excitons, electron-hole bound states that can form at an interface. By enhancing both thermopower and electrical conductivity, the counterflow construction of such bilayer-exciton systems can increase the thermoelectric figure of merit by an order of magnitude, compared to that of a bulk material.