Abstract
We reviewed some recent ideas to improve the efficiency and power output of thermoelectric nano-devices. We focused on two essentially independent aspects: (i) increasing the charge current by taking advantage of an interplay between the material and the thermodynamic parameters, which is only available in the non-linear regime; and (ii) decreasing the heat current by using nanowires with surface disorder, which helps excite localized phonons at random positions that can strongly scatter the propagating phonons carrying the thermal current.
Highlights
As is important in the context of thermoelectricity, here we only focus on the excitation of localized phonon states
Silicon nanowires with a particular type of surface roughness have been experimentally shown to have very low thermal conductivity, which makes them a good candidate to be an efficient thermoelectric device
We review the theoretical claim and numerical evidence that this is due to the existence of localized phonons in the surfacedisordered nanowires
Summary
Thermoelectric devices can convert unused waste heat into electricity or use electricity for refrigeration [1]. Suppose the two ends of a wire are kept at two different but fixed temperatures. The hot end with temperature TH has typically a higher density of more energetic electrons compared to the cold end kept at temperature
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