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Enhancement of thermoelectric performance in strongly correlated multilayered nanostructures
Author(s) -
Freericks J. K.,
Zlatić V.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.200674611
Subject(s) - figure of merit , thermoelectric effect , nanostructure , condensed matter physics , materials science , charge (physics) , seebeck coefficient , work (physics) , thermoelectric materials , symmetry (geometry) , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , physics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics , mathematics , geometry
We illustrate how the electronic charge reconstruction near the interfaces of metal–strongly‐correlated‐barrier–metal devices can lead to a significant enhancement of the thermoelectric response due to the breaking of particle‐hole symmetry. We show how one can achieve effective Seebeck coefficients larger than 150 µV/K and effective electronic figures‐of‐merit ZT higher than 1. Our work shows that electronic thermoelectric transport properties can be significantly enhanced from inhomogeneities created by the rearrangement of charge near the interfaces, and that bulk figures‐of‐merit cannot generically be employed to determine the figure‐of‐merit of a multilayered nanostructure. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)