Enhanced N-Type Bismuth-Telluride-Based Thermoelectric Fibers via Thermal Drawing and Bridgman Annealing

Min Sun; Pengyu Zhang; Qingmin Li; Guowu Tang; Ting Zhang; Dongdan Chen; Qi Qian

doi:10.3390/ma15155331

Enhanced N-Type Bismuth-Telluride-Based Thermoelectric Fibers via Thermal Drawing and Bridgman Annealing

Materials (Basel). 2022 Aug 3;15(15):5331. doi: 10.3390/ma15155331.

Authors

Min Sun¹, Pengyu Zhang^{1

2}, Qingmin Li^{1

3}, Guowu Tang^{1

4}, Ting Zhang^{2

5}, Dongdan Chen¹, Qi Qian¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, Guangdong Engineering Technology Research and Development Center of Special Optical Fiber Materials and Devices, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Fiber Laser Materials and Applied Techniques, School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
² Nanjing Institute of Future Energy System, Nanjing 211135, China.
³ China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Shijiazhuang 050051, China.
⁴ School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
⁵ Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Innovation Academy for Light-Duty Gas Turbine, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

Abstract

N-type bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃) based thermoelectric (TE) fibers were fabricated by thermal drawing and Bridgman annealing, and the influence of Bridgman annealing on the TE properties of n-type Bi₂Te₃-based TE fibers was studied. The Bridgman annealing enhanced the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient because of increasing crystalline orientation and decreasing detrimental elemental enrichment. The TE performance of n-type Bi₂Te₃-based TE fibers was improved significantly by enhancing the power factor. Hence the power factor increased from 0.14 to 0.93 mW/mK², and the figure-of-merit value is from 0.11 to 0.43 at ~300 K, respectively.

Keywords: Bridgman annealing; n-type Bi2Te3; thermal drawing; thermoelectric fibers.

Grants and funding

The work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (52002131, 62005080, 52172249), 2021 Talent Revitalization Plan Project for New High Performance Material Industry in Qingyuan City (2021YFJH02001), Local Innovative and Research Teams Project of Guangdong Pearl River Talents Program (2017BT01X137), Key R&D Program of Guangzhou (202007020003), and the Foundation of Innovation Academy for Light-duty Gas Turbine, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CXYJJ21-ZD-02).