Facile fabrication of Te/Cu₂Te nanorod composites with improved thermoelectric power factor and low thermal conductivity = Facile fabrication of Te/Cu₂Te nanorod composites with improved thermoelectric power factor and low thermal conductivity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this study, Te/Cu2Te nanorod composites are synthesized using various Cu2Te contents, and their thermoelectric properties are investigated. All nanorods are synthesized by solution phase mixing process with a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). With increasing Cu2Te contents, the composites exhibit a reduction in the Seebeck coefficient and enhanced electrical conductivity. These characteristic changes are due to the high electrical conductivity and low Seebeck coefficient of Cu2Te. The composite containing 30 wt.% of Cu2Te nanorods shows the maximum power factor (524.6 μV/K at room temperature). The two types of nanorods were assembled into a 1D nanostructure, with this structure, the thermal conductivity decreased owing to the strong phonon scattering effect. This composite had a dramatically improved ZT value of 0.3, which was ~545 times larger than that of the pristine Te nanorods.