Journal
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
Volume 116, Issue 19, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/5.0003749
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Funding
- International Energy Joint R&D Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) from the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE), Republic of Korea [20188550000290, 20172010000830]
- Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) Primary Research Program through the National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST) - Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of the Republic of Korea [20A01025]
- Korea Institute of Materials Science
- German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) [20188550000290] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
- National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST), Republic of Korea [20A01025] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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The thermoelectric figure of merit ZT, which is defined using electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, and absolute temperature T, has been widely used as a simple estimator of the conversion efficiency of a thermoelectric heat engine. When material properties are constant or slowly varying with T, a higher ZT ensures a higher maximum conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials. However, as material properties can vary strongly with T, efficiency predictions based on ZT can be inaccurate, especially for widetemperature applications. Moreover, although ZT values continue to increase, there has been no investigation of the relationship between ZT and the efficiency in the higher ZT regime. In this paper, we report a counterintuitive situation by comparing two materials: although one material has a higher ZT value over the whole operating temperature range, its maximum conversion efficiency is smaller than that of the other. This indicates that, for material comparisons, the evaluation of exact efficiencies as opposed to a simple comparison of ZTs is necessary in certain cases. (C) 2020 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
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