国外块体热电材料PbTe的研究进展

Progress of Research on Bulk Thermoelectric Material PbTe in Foreign Countries

摘要: PbTe作为应用在中温(500~900 K)段的块体热电材料, 是最早被深入研究的半导体热电材料体系之一。最近, 通过提高Seebeck系数和降低晶格热导率, 其热电无量纲优值ZT达到了1.4~1.8左右, 是目前块体热电材料中性能最好的热电材料。本文综述了近期国外对该材料体系的研究进展, 包括能带结构、声子谱、Seebeck系数提高方法、晶格热导率降低方法等, 并讨论了今后的发展方向。

Abstract: As a bulk thermoelectric (TE) material used in intermediate temperature ranged in 500 ~ 900 K, PbTe is one of the earliest semiconducting TE material systems that has been extensively studied.Recently, renew interests are invoked on this old material system due to the highest TE dimensionless figure-of-merit so far in bulk TE materials, ZT of 1.4 ~ 1.8.This paper reviews the recent progresses of this material system, include the energy band structure and phonon spectra, methods of Seebeck coefficient enhancing and lattice thermal conductivity suppressing, as well as the possible way of future study.