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Solid‐State Explosive Reaction for Nanoporous Bulk Thermoelectric Materials
Author(s) -
Zhao Kunpeng,
Duan Haozhi,
Raghavendra Nunna,
Qiu Pengfei,
Zeng Yi,
Zhang Wenqing,
Yang Jihui,
Shi Xun,
Chen Lidong
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201701148
Subject(s) - materials science , thermoelectric materials , thermoelectric effect , thermal conductivity , explosive material , nanoporous , porosity , microstructure , nanotechnology , composite material , thermodynamics , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry
High‐performance thermoelectric materials require ultralow lattice thermal conductivity typically through either shortening the phonon mean free path or reducing the specific heat. Beyond these two approaches, a new unique, simple, yet ultrafast solid‐state explosive reaction is proposed to fabricate nanoporous bulk thermoelectric materials with well‐controlled pore sizes and distributions to suppress thermal conductivity. By investigating a wide variety of functional materials, general criteria for solid‐state explosive reactions are built upon both thermodynamics and kinetics, and then successfully used to tailor material's microstructures and porosity. A drastic decrease in lattice thermal conductivity down below the minimum value of the fully densified materials and enhancement in thermoelectric figure of merit are achieved in porous bulk materials. This work demonstrates that controlling materials' porosity is a very effective strategy and is easy to be combined with other approaches for optimizing thermoelectric performance.