Title: Thermoelectric properties of bottom-up assembled Bi2S3xTex nanocomposites

Authors: Doris Cadavid; Maria Ibáñez; Umberto Anselmi-Tamburini; Oscar Juan Durá; Marco Antonio López de la Torre; Andreu Cabot

Addresses: Catalonia Institute for Energy Research – IREC, Jardins de les Dones de Negre, 1, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, 08930, Spain ' Catalonia Institute for Energy Research – IREC, Jardins de les Dones de Negre, 1, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, 08930, Spain ' Dipartamento de Chimica, Universita di Pavia, V. le Taramelli 16, 27100 Pavia, Italy ' Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Avd. Camilo José Cela, Edificio Politécnico, ETSII, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain ' Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Avd. Camilo José Cela, Edificio Politécnico, ETSII, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain ' Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats – ICREA, 08010 Barcelona, Spain; Catalonia Institute for Energy Research – IREC, Jardins de les Dones de Negre, 1, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, 08930, Spain

Abstract: Bi2S3xTex bulk nanocomposites with crystal domain sizes in the range from 50 nm to 100 nm were obtained from the reaction of Bi2S3 nanorods with Te powder. The thermoelectric properties of the obtained nanocomposites were analysed in the temperature range from 0°C to 300°C. We observed how the thermoelectric properties of the material improved with the annealing temperature, being a spark plasma sintering process needed to maintain the material nanostructuration while maximising its electrical properties. Finally thermoelectric dimensionless figures of merit ZT up to 0.42 were obtained before any charge carrier concentration optimisation.

Keywords: colloidal synthesis; nanoparticles; spark plasma sintering; Bi2Te3; bismuth telluride; Bi2S3; bismuth trisulphide; thermoelectricity; bulk nanocomposites; bottom-up assembly; nanotechnology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2014.063787

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2014 Vol.11 No.9/10/11, pp.773 - 784

Published online: 14 Jan 2015 *

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