BiCuSeO system is achieved via heavily doping with Ba and refining grain sizes (200-400 nm), which is higher than any thermoelectric oxide. Excellent thermal and chemical stabilities up to 923 K and high thermoelectric performance confirm that the BiCuSeO system is promising for thermoelectric power generation applications.The thermoelectric (TE) energy conversion technology, which can be used to convert wasted heat into electricity, has received much attention in the past decade. The efficiency of TE devices is characterized by the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT ¼ (S 2 s/k)T, where S, s, k, and T are the Seebeck coefficient, the electrical conductivity, the thermal conductivity, and the absolute temperature, respectively. Until now, several classes of bulk materials with high ZT values have been discovered, 1,2 including nanostructured BiSbTe alloys, 3 filled skutterudites, 4 zinc antimonide, 5 AgPb 18+x SbTe 20 , 6 Tl doped PbTe 7 or (AgSbTe 2 ) 1Àx (GeTe) x alloys, 8 but they lack thermal and chemical stabilities in air. Therefore, TE oxides are expected to play an important role in extensive applications for waste heat recovery, on the basis of their potential advantage over heavy metallic alloys of chemical and thermal robustness. To date, several families of oxides have been developed as promising TE materials. Typical TE oxides include Ca 2.8 Ag 0.15 Lu 0.05 Co 4 O 9+d

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β-NaGdF(4) : Yb(3+)/Er(3+) nanoparticles (NPs) codoped with Li(+) ions were prepared for the first time via a thermal decomposition reaction of trifluoroacetates in oleylamine. The influence of site occupancy of Li(+) on the upconversion emission of β-NaGdF(4) : Yb(3+)/Er(3+) NPs was investigated in detail. The upconversion emission intensity was significantly enhanced by introducing different concentrations of Li(+) ions. In contrast to lithium-free β-NaGdF(4) : Yb(3+)/Er(3+), the green and red UC emission intensities of the NPs codoped with 7 mol% Li(+) ions were enhanced by about 47 and 23 times, respectively. The luminescence enhancement should be attributed to the distortion of the local asymmetry around Er(3+) ions. The mechanisms for the enhancement of upconversion emission were discussed. In addition, it was found in our research work that β-NaGdF(4) : Yb(3+)/Er(3+) NPs exhibited paramagnetic features at room temperature and the magnetization was slightly increased by introducing Li(+) ions.

The understanding of the interaction between the building blocks in the hybrids can advance our comprehension of design principles in high-performance microwave absorbing materials. Here, we report a hybrid material consisting of magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals grown on multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) as a high-performance microwave absorber in the 2–18 GHz band, although Fe3O4 nanocrystals or MWCNTs alone or their physical mixture show little microwave absorption. The hybrid is characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and vector network analysis, X-ray absorption near-edge structures at the C K-edge and Fe L3,2-edge, and electron spin resonance analysis. Microstructural analysis reveals that Fe3O4 nanocrystals are immobilized on the MWCNT surface by a strong interaction. Charges in the MWCNT/Fe3O4 hybrids transfer from the conduction band in Fe3O4 to C 2p-derived states in the MWCNT substrate. Dipole interaction between the magnetic nanocrystals is increased. The synergetic interactions leads to much improved microwave absorption.

Grain or phase boundaries play a critical role in the carrier and phonon transport in bulk thermoelectric materials. Previous investigations about controlling boundaries primarily focused on the reducing grain size or forming nanoinclusions. Herein, liquid phase compaction method is first used to fabricate the Yb‐filled CoSb3 with excess Sb content, which shows the typical feature of low‐angle grain boundaries with dense dislocation arrays. Seebeck coefficients show a dramatic increase via energy filtering effect through dislocation arrays with little deterioration on the carrier mobility, which significantly enhances the power factor over a broad temperature range with a high room‐temperature value around 47 μW cm−2 K−1. Simultaneously, the lattice thermal conductivity could be further suppressed via scattering phonons via dense dislocation scattering. As a result, the highest average figure of merit ZT of ≈1.08 from 300 to 850 K could be realized, comparable to the best reported result of single or triple‐filled Skutterudites. This work clearly points out that low‐angle grain boundaries fabricated by liquid phase compaction method could concurrently optimize the electrical and thermal transport properties leading to an obvious enhancement of both power factor and ZT.

SnTe is known as an eco-friendly analogue of PbTe without toxic elements. However, the application potentials of pure SnTe are limited because of its high hole carrier concentration derived from intrinsic Sn vacancies, which lead to a high electrical thermal conductivity and low Seebeck coefficient. In this study, Sn self-compensation and Mn alloying could significantly improve the Seebeck coefficients in the whole temperature range through simultaneous carrier concentration optimization and band engineering, thereby leading to a large improvement of the power factors. Combining precipitates and atomic-scale interstitials due to Mn alloying with dense dislocations induced by long time annealing, the lattice thermal conductivity is drastically reduced. As a result, an enhanced figure of merit (ZT) of 1.35 is achieved for the composition of Sn Mn Te at 873 K and the ZT from 300 to 873 K is boosted to 0.78, which is of great significance for practical application. Hitherto, the ZT and ZT of this work are the highest values among all single-element-doped SnTe systems.

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