Materials With Open Crystal Structure as Prospective Novel Thermoelectrics

Abstract

AbstractA useful approach to identify materials with high thermoelectric figure of merit is to search for solids that offer great flexibility to modify and tailor the structure so as to achieve the optimal transport behavior. Among the most promising novel thermoelectric materials are solids with “open crystal structure”. They may be typified by structures with unfilled cages, crystals with an empty atomic sublattice, and by a network of polyhedral cages enclosing guest species. In this paper we present our latest results concerning transport properties in the above classes of solids. Specifically, we focus on the filled skutterudites, half-Heusler alloys, and clathrates.