Amorphous TiNiSn for efficient green energy generation
Facts
- Contact person:
- Denis Music
- Financer:
-
- Olle Engkvists stiftelse
- Responsible at MaU:
- Denis Music
- Time frame:
- 01 September 2022 - 01 September 2026
- Faculty/department:
- Research subject:
About the project
Thermoelectric devices directly convert heat into electricity without CO2 emission. Due to the relatively low efficiency of thermoelectric devices, applications are limited to, for instance, space probes and satellites, industrial waste heat recovery, as well as cooling. Common strategies to enhance their efficiency involve nanostructuring and doping. The notion that amorphous systems can be more efficient than crystalline counterparts has not been utilized extensively due to the challenges to synthesize such samples, characterising them, and describing them theoretically. Combining theory and experiments, we have drastically increased the thermoelectric efficiency of amorphous Nb-O thin films, an effort which is unknown for TiNiSn. Crystalline TiNiSn is a promising thermoelectric material and it is expected that amorphous TiNiSn can exceed its performance, enabling novel applications such as flexible and wearable green energy devices.