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The bottleneck in modern thermoelectric power generation and cooling is thelow energy conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials. The detrimentaleffects of lattice phonons on performance can be mitigated, but achieving ahigh thermoelectric power factor remains a major problem because the Seebeckcoefficient and electrical conductivity cannot be jointly increased. Theconducting electron gas in thermoelectric materials is the actual working fluidthat performs the energy conversion, so its properties determine the maximumefficiency that can theoretically be achieved. By relating the thermoelasticproperties of the electronic working fluid to its transport properties(considering noninteracting electron systems), we show why the performance ofconventional semiconductor materials is doomed to remain low. Analyzing thetemperature dependence of the power factor theoretically in 2D systems andexperimentally in a thin film, we find that in the fluctuation regimes of anelectronic phase transition, the thermoelectric power factor can significantlyincrease owing to the increased compressibility of the electron gas. We alsocalculate the ideal thermoelectric conversion efficiency in noninteractingelectron systems across a wide temperature range neglecting phonon effects anddissipative coupling to the heat source and sink. Our results show that drivingthe electronic system to the vicinity of a phase transition can indeed be aninnovative route to strong performance enhancement, but at the cost of anextremely narrow temperature range for the use of such materials, which in turnprecludes potential development for the desired wide range of thermoelectricenergy conversion applications.

The thermoelectric conversion efficiency problem: Insights from the electron gas thermodynamics close to a phase transition