caa a22 4500 528785257 20190713030951.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180924s2016 xx s 000 0 eng 10.3929/ethz-b-000114262 doi 10.1038/ncomms10766 doi (ETHRESEARCH)oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/114262 High-performance thermoelectric nanocomposites from nanocrystal building blocks [Elektronische Daten] [María Ibáñez, Zhishan Luo, Aziz Genç, Laura Piveteau, Silvia Ortega, Doris Cadavid, Oleksandr Dobrozhan, Yu Liu, Maarten Nachtegaal, Mona Zebarjadi, Jordi Arbiol, Maksym V. Kovalenko, Andreu Cabot] Nat Commun Open access ethresearch The efficient conversion between thermal and electrical energy by means of durable, silent and scalable solid-state thermoelectric devices has been a long standing goal. While nanocrystalline materials have already led to substantially higher thermoelectric efficiencies, further improvements are expected to arise from precise chemical engineering of nanoscale building blocks and interfaces. Here we present a simple and versatile bottom-up strategy based on the assembly of colloidal nanocrystals to produce consolidated yet nanostructured thermoelectric materials. In the case study on the PbS-Ag system, Ag nanodomains not only contribute to block phonon propagation, but also provide electrons to the PbS host semiconductor and reduce the PbS intergrain energy barriers for charge transport. Thus, PbS-Ag nanocomposites exhibit reduced thermal conductivities and higher charge carrier concentrations and mobilities than PbS nanomaterial. Such improvements of the material transport properties provide thermoelectric figures of merit up to 1.7 at 850 K. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ethresearch Ibáñez María joint author Luo Zhishan joint author Genç Aziz joint author Piveteau Laura joint author Ortega Silvia joint author Cadavid Doris joint author Dobrozhan Oleksandr joint author Liu Yu joint author Nachtegaal Maarten joint author Zebarjadi Mona joint author Arbiol Jordi joint author Kovalenko Maksym V. joint author Cabot Andreu joint author Nature Communications London : Nature Publishing Group 7, p. 10766 2041-1723 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/114262 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) 1 Journal Article ethresearch ETHRESEARCH 856 40 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/114262 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Ibáñez María joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Luo Zhishan joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Genç Aziz joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Piveteau Laura joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Ortega Silvia joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Cadavid Doris joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Dobrozhan Oleksandr joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Liu Yu joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Nachtegaal Maarten joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Zebarjadi Mona joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Arbiol Jordi joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Kovalenko Maksym V. joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Cabot Andreu joint author ETHRESEARCH 773 0- Nature Communications London : Nature Publishing Group 7, p. 10766 2041-1723 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH Journal Article Open access