High Performance Thermoelectric Half-Heusler and Zintl Materials

In order to achieve high thermoelectric figure-of-merit, we have to obtain high power factor and low thermal conductivity simultaneously. In the past twenty years, significant progress has been made on either achieving high power factor or low thermal conductivity in a variety of thermoelectric materials, but rarely both. In this talk, I will present our effort on enhancing the power factor and reducing the thermal conductivity in both half-Heusler and Zintl materials, which eventually leads to high thermoelectric performance.