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Phonon drag effect in nanocomposite FeSb2

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Abstract

We study the temperature dependence of thermoelectric transport properties of four FeSb2 nanocomposite samples with different grain sizes. The comparison of the single crystals and nanocomposites of varying grain sizes indicates the presence of substantial phonon drag effects in this system contributing to a large Seebeck coefficient at low temperature. As the grain size decreases, the increased phonon scattering at the grain boundaries leads to a suppression of the phonon-drag effect, resulting in a much smaller peak value of the Seebeck coefficient in the nanostructured bulk materials. As a consequence, the ZT values are not improved significantly even though the thermal conductivity is drastically reduced.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank J. Heremans, K. Kempa, and R. Farrell, S.J. for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript. C.O. acknowledges financial support from the Trustees of Boston College. We gratefully acknowledge funding for this work by the Department of Defense, United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) Program under Contract No. FA9550-10-1-0533.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, 02467, USA

    Mani Pokharel, Huaizhou Zhao, Kevin Lukas, Zhifeng Ren & Cyril Opeil

  2. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 87545, USA

    Bogdan Mihaila

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  1. Mani Pokharel
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  2. Huaizhou Zhao
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  3. Kevin Lukas
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  4. Zhifeng Ren
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  5. Cyril Opeil
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Correspondence to Mani Pokharel.

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Pokharel, M., Zhao, H., Lukas, K. et al. Phonon drag effect in nanocomposite FeSb2. MRS Communications 3, 31–36 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2013.7

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