A High Performance Ag Alloyed Nano-scale n-type Bi2Te3 Based Thermoelectric Material

Paper in proceedings, 2015

A silver alloyed n-type bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) thermoelectric (TE) bulk material with nano crystalline structure was studied and characterized in this paper. The Bi2Te3 nanopowders used in this study were first fabricated via a patented explosion based process. Then, the various concentrations of Ag nanoparticles (0-20 wt. %) were added into the Bi2Te3 nanopowders in order to increase the electrical conductivity. Combining the benefits of high electrical conductivity (1.51x10(5) S.m(-1)) and low thermal conductivity (0.441 W.m(-1).K-1), the dimensionless figure of merit (ZT value) of 1.48 for this n-type Bi2Te3 TE material is achieved at 300 K temperature.