Thermoelectrics
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Apr 26 | News
Silicon
germanium (SiGe) has been valued for its performance in
high-temperature thermoelectric applications, but its low-temperature
performance and high cost have prevented broader applications. By
altering the design of bulk SiGe with a process borrowed from the
thin-film semiconductor industry, however, researchers have
substantially increased its electrical conductivity.
Apr 24 | News
Graphene,
a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, has spawned much research into its
unique
electronic, optical, and mechanical properties. Now, researchers at
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology have found another compound that shares
many of
graphene's unusual characteristics—and in some cases has interesting
complementary properties to this much-heralded material.
Apr 18 | News
Engineers
at Purdue University have coated glass fibers with a new thermoelectric
material formed by dipping glass fibers in a solution containing
nanocrystals of lead telluride and then exposing them to heat in a
process called annealing to fuse the crystals together. The resulting
material is far less brittle and more effiicient to produce than
conventional thermoelectrics.
Mar 22 | News
In the continual quest for better thermoelectric
materials—which convert heat into electricity and vice versa—researchers
have
identified a liquid-like compound whose properties give it the potential
to be
even more efficient than traditional thermoelectrics.
Mar 13 | News
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science's Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, in collaboration with scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Michigan, and the California Institute of Technology, have identified a new class of high-performance thermoelectric materials. In their study, liquid-like copper ions carry electric current around a solid selenium crystal lattice.
Feb 22 | News
Made
from carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers and made to
feel like fabric, an invention called Power Felt from Wake Forest
University uses temperature differences—room temperature versus body
temperature, for example—to create a charge.
Feb 3 | News
A
team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers has
developed a
way of making a high-temperature version of a kind of materials called
photonic
crystals, using metals such as tungsten or tantalum. The new
materials—which
can operate at temperatures up to 1,200 C—could find a wide variety of
applications powering portable electronic devices, spacecraft to probe
deep
space, and new infrared light emitters that could be used as chemical
detectors
and sensors.
12/14/2011 | News
The
surprising discovery of a new way to tune and enhance thermal
conductivity—a basic property generally considered to be fixed for a
given material—could give engineers a new tool for managing thermal
effects in smart phones and computers, lasers, and a number of other
powered devices.
12/14/2011 | News
A
repository developed by Duke University engineers that they call a
"materials genome" could allow scientists to stop using trail-and-error
methods for combining electricity-producing materials. The
thermoelectrics database project covers thousands of compounds, and
provides detailed "recipes" for creating most efficient combinations for
a particular purpose.
10/21/2011 | News
Systems to harness the sun's energy typically generate either electricity or heat in the form of steam or hot water. But a new analysis by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that there could be significant advantages to systems that produce both electricity and heat simultaneously.
