Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Structures”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,351 records · Page 75
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

All-Scale Hierarchically Structured p-Type PbSe Alloys with High Thermoelectric Performance Enabled by Improved Band Degeneracy

We show an example of hierarchically designing electronic bands of PbSe toward excellent thermoelectric performance. We find that alloying 15 mol % PbTe into PbSe causes a negligible change in the light and heavy valence band energy offsets (ΔE V ) of PbSe around room temperature; however, with rising temperature it makes ΔE V decrease at a significantly higher rate than in PbSe. In other words, the temperature-induced valence band convergence of PbSe is accelerated by alloying with PbTe. On this basis, applying 3 mol % Cd substitution on the Pb sites of PbSe 0.85 Te 0.15 decreases ΔE V and enhances the Seebeck coefficient at all temperatures. Here, excess Cd precipitates out as CdSe 1-y Te y , whose valence band aligns with that of the p-type Na-doped PbSe 0.85 Te 0.15 matrix. This enables facile charge transport across the matrix/precipitate interfaces and retains the high carrier mobilities. Meanwhile, compared to PbSe the lattice thermal conductivity of PbSe 0.85 Te 0.15 is significantly decreased to its amorphous limit of 0.5 W m -1 K -1 . Consequently, a highest peak ZT of 1.7 at 900 K and a record high average ZT of ~1 (400-900 K) for a PbSe-based system are achieved in the composition Pb 0.95 Na 0.02 Cd 0.03 Se 0.85 Te 0.15 , which are ~70% and ~50% higher than those of Pb 0.98 Na 0.02 Se control sample, respectively.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗