Giant thermoelectric figure of merit in fluorine-doped single walled-carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Herein, we report on a giant thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of a non-degenerate fluorine-doped single-walled carbon nanotube (FSWCNT) using a tractable analytical approach and the phonon lattice Boltzmann model (LBM). We investigate the influence of the doping concentration (no), and overlapping integrals (Δs and Δz) on ZT. ZT and the temperature range of operation can be tuned using the doping (impurity) concentration and the overlapping integrals, respectively. The lattice thermal conductivity obtained using the phonon LBM was calculated to be κℓ=107.2W/mK, which yielded a ZT greater than 6. Interestingly, the ZT obtained is higher than what has been reported for superlattices (ZT≈1.4) and superlattice nanowire (ZT≈4) at 300K, making FSWCNT a potential candidate for thermoelectric applications such as chip level electronics cooling, remote telecommunication power production, and temperature control systems in solid state lasers.