Improving Thermoelectric Properties of Nanowires Through Inhomogeneity

Abstract

Inhomogeneity in nanowires can be present in the cross-section and/or by breaking the translational symmetry along the nanowire. In particular, the quasiperiodicity introduces an unusual class of electronic and phononic transport with a singular continuous eigenvalue spectrum and critically localized wave functions. In this work, the thermoelectricity in periodic and quasiperiodically segmented nanobelts and nanowires is addressed within the Boltzmann formalism by using a real-space renormalization plus convolution method developed for the Kubo–Greenwood formula, in which tight-binding and Born models are, respectively, used for the calculation of electric and lattice thermal conductivities. For periodic nanowires, we observe a maximum of the thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) in the temperature space, as occurred in the carrier concentration space. This maximum ZT can be improved by introducing into nanowires periodically arranged segments and an inhomogeneous cross-section. Finally, the quasiperiodically segmented nanowires reveal an even larger ZT in comparison with the periodic ones.