Comprehensive study of tellurium based glass ceramics for thermoelectric application

Abstract

Tellurium based glasses have interesting thermoelectric characteristics. However, their high electrical resistivity is still an obstacle to considering them for thermoelectric applications. In this work, the (Te 85 Se 15 ) 6020.6x As 4020.4x Cu x glass system was studied. This revealed that Cu can act as glass former and increase both glass thermal stability and electrical conductivity. The best candidate, (Te 85 Se 15 ) 45 As 30 Cu 25 , was chosen to prepare composites with Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 using spark plasma sintering. These glass ceramic samples exhibited a much better thermoelectric performance. Glass ceramics with 50 mol. % of Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 show a maximum ZT value equal to 0.37 at 413 K. Meanwhile, the advantages of glass including low sintering temperature and high formability are well maintained.

Thermoelectric Properties of Highly-Crystallized Ge-Te-Se Glasses Doped with Cu/Bi

“…Telluride glasses, particularly known for their low thermal conductivity of 0.12 WK −1 m −1 [24] and simple glass-making process, makes them ideal candidates. An array of compositions of chalcogenide semiconducting glasses and glass-ceramics with low thermal conductivity and unusually high electrical conductivity for a glassy phase have been previously reported [25,26,27]. Though these kind of semiconducting glasses, especially Cu-doped telluride glasses, exhibit high Seebeck coefficient of around 600 µV/K at room temperatures [25,26,28,29,30,31,32], their high degree of structural disorder causes large electron scatterings that results in low mobility and electrical conductivity, which pulls down the power factor and overall zT to values that are too low for any relevant large-scale industrial applications.…”

Ultraflexible Glassy Semiconductor Fibers for Thermal Sensing and Positioning

“…Figure 1a schematically shows the preform-based fabrication of TE fibers. A semiconducting glass rod of (Te 85 Se 15 ) 45 As 30 Cu 25 shown in the inset of Figure 1a is first synthesized by standard sealed-ampoule technique 15,16 and the detailed processes are described in the following Experimental Section. This semiconducting glass offers two superior properties in constructing flexible thermal sensors.…”

“…However, the thermal conductivities are around 4.0 W/mK in the experimental temperature range (Figure 2e) and higher than the reported thermal conductivities of the amorphous Cu-As-Te-Se glasses. 15,16 This can be explained by the emergence of crystalline phases, as the minor crystal peaks in the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 7 X-ray diffraction spectrum in Figure 2a, which will increase the thermal conductivity and decrease the final TE Figure of merit (ZT) as shown in Figure 2f.…”

“…However, for thermal sensing property, we need large Seebeck coefficients to guarantee high sensitivity and accuracy of thermal sensor, where a fast and large voltage generation occurs from a minimal temperature change. Therefore, the crystalline fiber core can improve the thermoelectric properties 15,16 and suitable for power generation, but the amorphous fiber core possesses higher Seebeck coefficients and lower thermal conductivities, and can be more applicable for thermal sensor.…”

GlaCERCo: Glass and Ceramic Composites for High Technology Applications – Marie Curie Initial Training Network

“…The glass-ceramics explored in this work exhibited good TE performance and at the same time maintained the advantages of glass (including low termal conductivity, low sintering temperature and high formability). 6 (iv) Design, preparation and characterisation of new glasses suitable for bone substitution (i.e. glass and glass-ceramic macroporous scaffolds) and arthroprosthesis (i.e.…”