Abstract Inorganic semiconductor-carbon nanotube (CNT) hybrid is a new type of promising flexible thermoelectric (TE) material for efficient thermal energy recovery and positive cooling. However, the influence of CNTs, that typically have a high thermal conductivity (κ), high electrical conductivity (σ) and low figure-of-merit (ZT) value, on the hybrid properties remains unclear, and this is vital for the rational design of high-performance CNT-containing TEs. Here, we report a flexible TE material of Bi2Te3 nanocrystals attached to a CNT network with tuned κ and σ. By plasma pretreating the CNT scaffold, a high density of defects was generated at the hybrid interface, which introduced strong phonon scattering without much sacrifice of σ, due to the different attenuations of the wavelength spectra of phonons and carriers. Consequently, the hybrid lattice κ was significantly reduced to ∼0.19 W m−1 K−1, and a ZT value of ∼0.25 was obtained at room temperature, ∼50% higher than that obtained using pristine CNTs. Our results provide a general approach to the decoupling of phonon and carrier transport properties by tailoring the hybrid interface, which is significant for developing high-performance flexible CNT-based TE hybrids.

中文翻译：

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在碳纳米管/Bi2Te3 界面解耦声子和载流子散射以提高热电性能

摘要 无机半导体-碳纳米管（CNT）杂化材料是一种新型的柔性热电（TE）材料，具有高效的热能回收和正冷却功能。然而，通常具有高热导率 (κ)、高电导率 (σ) 和低品质因数 (ZT) 值的碳纳米管对杂化性能的影响仍不清楚，这对于合理的高性能含 CNT TE 的设计。在这里，我们报告了一种灵活的 TE 材料，Bi2Te3 纳米晶体连接到具有调谐 κ 和 σ 的 CNT 网络。通过等离子体预处理碳纳米管支架，在混合界面处产生了高密度的缺陷，由于声子和载流子的波长光谱衰减不同，这在不牺牲 σ 的情况下引入了强声子散射。最后，混合晶格 κ 显着降低到 ~0.19 W m-1 K-1，并且在室温下获得了 ~0.25 的 ZT 值，比使用原始 CNT 获得的值高 ~50%。我们的结果提供了一种通过定制混合界面来解耦声子和载流子传输特性的通用方法，这对于开发高性能、灵活的基于 CNT 的 TE 混合体具有重要意义。