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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 48: Poster 2
HL 48.2: Poster
Thursday, March 26, 2009, 15:00–17:30, P2
Lattice dynamics in thermoelectric materials — •Anne Möchel1, Werner Schweika1, Karin Schmalzl2, Jörg Voigt2, and Raphaël P. Hermann1 — 1Institut für Festkörperforschung, Streumethoden, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany — 2Institut für Festkörperforschung, JCNS, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany
Peltier elements are well known and commonly used for noiseless cooling or heating without any cryogenic agent nor mechanical movement. The thermoelectric materials used in these Peltier elements can also be used to recover waste heat, e.g. from exhaust gas of cars or industry, in order to protect our environment.
The application of thermoelectric materials as power converter is still rare, because of the poor efficiency in today's known and used materials. A good thermoelectric material must show a high electric conductivity, but it has to be a poor thermal conductor on the same time and an increase in efficiency requires, among other tuning, a decrease of the thermal conductivity.
Therefore a good understanding of the lattice dynamics in thermoelectric materials is necessary. New classes of promising thermoelectric materials are filled skutterudites and clathrates. We have studied the lattice dynamics in filled gallium germanium clathrates and ytterbium skutterudites with macroscopic methods, such as heat capacity measurements and resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, and neutron and X-ray scattering.