Ab initio optimization of phonon drag effect for lower-temperature thermoelectric energy conversion
Author(s)
Zhou, Jiawei; Liao, Bolin; Qiu, Bo; Huberman, Samuel C.; Esfarjani, Keivan; Dresselhaus, Mildred; Chen, Gang; ... Show more Show less
Downloadgang Chen-2015-Ab initio optimizati.pdf (767.0Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY
Publisher Policy
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
It has been well known that the phonon drag effect—an extra electrical current induced by phonon heat flow via electron–phonon interaction—can lead to unusually high Seebeck coefficient at low temperatures. However, its use for improving thermoelectric performance has been controversial. Here, using first principles calculations we examine the phonon drag with detailed mode-specific contributions and reveal that even in heavily doped silicon at room temperature, phonon drag can still be significant, which challenges the previous belief that phonon drag vanishes in heavily doped samples. A phonon filter is designed to spectrally decouple the phonon drag from the heat conduction. Our simulation explores the coupled electron phonon transport and uncovers the possibility of optimizing the phonon drag for better thermoelectrics.
Date issued
2015-12Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsJournal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
Citation
Zhou, Jiawei, Bolin Liao, Bo Qiu, Samuel Huberman, Keivan Esfarjani, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, and Gang Chen. “Ab Initio Optimization of Phonon Drag Effect for Lower-Temperature Thermoelectric Energy Conversion.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112, no. 48 (November 16, 2015): 14777–14782.
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0027-8424
1091-6490