Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

3d Printing Nanostructured Thermoelectric Device, Qianru Jia, Collier Miers, Amy Marconnet

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Thermoelectric materials convert thermal energy to electrical energy and vice versa. Thermoelectrics have attracted much attention and research efforts due to the possibility solving electronic cooling problems and reducing energy consumption through waste heat recovery. The efficiency of a thermoelectric material is determined by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT, which depends on both thermal and electrical properties. Researchers have worked for several decades to improve the ZT, but there had been little progress until nanomaterials and nanofabrication became widely available. Nanotechnology makes the ZT enhancement attainable by disconnecting the linkage between thermal and electrical transport. Printing customized, flexible thermoelectric …