Electronic and Optical Properties of Doped Zeolites and Clathrates: Display and Thermoelectric Applications

摘要

Thermoelectric materials use temperature differences to produce electricity or use electrical power to produce cooling. The first property is used in energy recovery from hot gases (e.g., to make electricity from exhaust gases coming out of engines). The second is used to make refrigerators that have no moving parts, cause no pollution, and can cool microelectronic systems. Both types of devices are currently used only for special applications, since they are not economically competitive. However, they would be if some of their properties could be improved by a factor of two or more. In our work we use theory to anticipate which compounds, in a class of candidates called semiconductor clathrates, are likely to have superior thermoelectric properties. Such predictions help the experimentalists to focus on the synthesis and characterization of the most promising candidates.