Innovative Design of Bismuth-Telluride-Based Thermoelectric Transistors

Abstract

Conventional thermoelectric generators, predominantly based on the π-type structure, are severely limited in their applications due to the relatively low conversion efficiency. In response to the challenge, in this work, a Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric transistor driven by laser illumination is demonstrated. Under laser illumination, a temperature difference of 46.7 °C is produced between the two ends of the transistor structure. Further, the hole concentrations in each region redistribute and the built-in voltages decrease due to the temperature difference, leading to the formation of the transistor circuit. Additionally, the operation condition of the thermoelectric transistor is presented. The calculation results demonstrate that the maximum output power of such a designed thermoelectric transistor is 0.7093 μW.

DFT calculations of the structural, elastic, and electronic properties of (Bi1−xFex)2Te3 chalcogenides

“…The change to an electronic conductor and flexible material by adding Fe to Bi 2 Te 3 , may favor its use as a flexible polyimide film in flexible thermoelectric generators that can be used in micropower systems applied in self-powered sensors and electronic devices [101,102]. Applied as a material in thermoelectric devices (TEDs), the increase in the flexibility of Bi 2 Te 3 with Fe can reduce the excessive use of welding with the electrodes to avoid serious defects in the system due to thermal expansion [103] which would lead to the use of this material for applications in power supplies and localized cooling [104], medicine [105], transistors [106], chip and solar thermoelectric applications [107].…”