Advances in Thermoelectricity: Foundational Issues, Materials and Nanotechnology

Book excerpt: The field of thermoelectricity has continued to develop rapidly in recent years and remains one of the most exciting areas of research for a materials physicist. The need for sustainable energy has added a technological momentum to the challenge of devising materials with exceptional properties such as low thermal conductivity, high electrical conductivity and a large Seebeck coefficient, and has triggered a global, interdisciplinary effort. More recently, research on thermoelectric materials has promoted and motivated a major research endeavor to clarify the factors affecting thermal conductivity in nanostructures as part of a more general effort to apply nanotechnology to enhance the performance of thermoelectric materials for use in thermoelectric generators and coolers. This book contains the lectures presented as Course 207 of the International School of Physics Enrico Fermi, Advances in Thermoelectricity: Foundational Issues, Materials, and Nanotechnology, held in Varenna, Italy from 15 – 20 July 2019. This comprehensive course aimed to provide students with a modern vision of the physics of thermoelectric phenomena, starting from the thermodynamics of thermoelectricity and from the physics of transport processes and demonstrating how material structure and nanostructure, together with defects, have been used to tailor the physical properties of advanced thermoelectrics. Special attention was also given to areas of current research – from spin-caloritronics to charge transport in polymers – and to a selected number of applications for heat recovery. Encompassing the full complexity of modern thermoelectricity and covering the most cogent themes relevant to current research, the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.