Research progress of thermoelectric refrigeration technology from thermoelectric material point of view (II)

Low dimensional thermoelectric (0~3D) material is a new research in recent years. Because of the function of the quantum well and quantum wire, low dimensional material has extraordinary thermoelectric property. The low dimension can increase α and phonon boundary scattering of the potential well surface. Terry M Tritt obtained the different dimension curve of Bi2Te3 with the change of quantum welldW(quantum wire thickness). The result shows that three dimensional material do not change with the change of dW; however, in the condition of the dimension reduction, the value of ZT will increase sharply when dW reduces, which shows that low dimensional material can improve ZT value of thermoelectric materials.

Superlattice material is formed by periodically alternating growth of two or more kinds of materials with thin layers, which was researched by Hicks and Dresselhaus. The structure of superlattice material can obviously improve the energy transfer of phonon and electron and reduce λe, which is a very potential way to improve the thermoelectric figure of merit. Currently, it is just used for electronic devices.

Thermoelectric refrigeration technology should achieve a breakthrough in materials, and through doping, low dimensional and superlattice structure, the figure of meritcan be significantly improved, which is the future development direction of thermoelectric materials.

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