The discovery of thermoelectric material develops new forms of electricity in the future

Thermoelectrics directly convert heat into electricity and power a wide range of items – from NASA’s Perseverance rover that is currently exploring Mars to traveling coolers that cool drinks.

A physicist at Clemson University has joined forces with collaborators in China and Denmark to create a new high-performance thermoelectric compound that could potentially change the paradigm.

The atomic structure of a material, which is how atoms are arranged in space and time, determines its properties. The solids are usually crystalline or amorphous. In crystals, the atoms are in an ordered and symmetrical pattern. Amorphous materials have atoms distributed randomly.

Clemson researcher Jian He and the international team have created a new hybrid compound in which crystalline and amorphous substrates are intertwined in a unique crystal-amorphous duality.

“Our material is a unique hybrid atomic structure, half crystalline and half amorphous,” said He, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the College of Science. “If you have a unique or particular atomic structure, you would expect to see very unusual properties, because the properties follow the structure.”

High quality energy research journal Joule published their findings in a paper entitled “Thermoelectric materials with crystal-amorphous duality induced by the mismatch of large atomic dimensions,” which appeared online on April 16 before the May 19 issue.

The researchers created their hybrid material by intentionally mixing elements from the same group on the periodic table, but with different atomic dimensions. Here, they used the atomic-size mismatches between sulfur and tellurium and between copper and silver to create a new compound (Cu1-xAgx) 2 (Te1-ySy) in which crystalline and amorphous substrates intertwine in a unique way. amorphousness. The new compound showed excellent thermoelectric performance.

Although this discovery does not have a direct impact on the application now, it is likely to lead to better thermoelectricity in the future.

“The new material works well, but more important than that is how it achieves that level of performance,” he said. “Traditionally, thermoelectric materials are crystals. Our material is not pure crystal and we show that we can achieve the same level of performance as a material with a new atomic structure.”

He said he expects the new material to start affecting applications in 10-20 years.

“I can definitely do something that current thermoelectric materials can’t do, but not now,” he said. “However, the future of this research is bright.”

In addition to He, the research involved scientists from Shanghai Jiaotong University, the Shanghai Ceramics Institute and SUSTech in China and Aarhus University in Denmark.