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Crystals
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Advances in Thermoelectric Thin Films
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Advances in Thermoelectric Thin Films

A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials for Energy Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 4463

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhifang Zhou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Interests: thermoelectrics; functional ceramics; composites; thin films; two-dimensional electron gas; interface engineering
Prof. Dr. Anna Paola Caricato

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mathematics and Physics “E. De Giorgi”, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Interests: pulsed laser deposition; nanomaterials; organic and inorganic thin films

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Thermoelectric materials can realize the direct conversion of heat energy and electrical energy, which gives it the potential for broader application in the field of thermoelectric power generation and cooling. Low-dimensional thermoelectric materials, especially two-dimensional thin films, have been considered as a breakthrough in the effort to decouple the correlations between electronic and thermal transport, contributing to the optimization of thermoelectric performance. Recent years have witnessed the rapid progress of research on thermoelectric thin films in topics such as novel preparation methods, structure design, two-dimensional electron gas, flexible and wearable thermoelectric devices and more. This Special Issue focuses on the most recent advances of thermoelectric thin films in topics including but not limited to inorganic, organic, and hybrid inorganic–organic thin films; flexible devices; and theoretical explanation. This Special Issue could be a good platform for you to share your recent progress in thermoelectric thin films. We encourage the submission of manuscripts in the form of research articles, short communications, and reviews.

Dr. Zhifang Zhou
Prof. Dr. Anna Caricato
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • thermoelectric materials
  • inorganic thin films
  • organic thin films
  • inorganic/organic hybrid films
  • two-dimensional electron gas
  • flexible devices
  • interface structure design
  • characterization methods
  • property measurement

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

9 pages, 1638 KiB  
Article
Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance of ZnO-Based Thin Films via Interface Engineering
by Zhifang Zhou, Yunpeng Zheng, Yueyang Yang, Wenyu Zhang, Mingchu Zou, Ce-Wen Nan and Yuan-Hua Lin
Crystals 2022, 12(10), 1351; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst12101351 - 24 Sep 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1731
Abstract
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a potential thermoelectric material with good chemical and thermal stability as well as an excellent Seebeck coefficient. However, the extremely low carrier concentration brings poor electrical transport properties. Although Gallium (Ga) doping could increase the carrier concentration of ZnO [...] Read more.
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a potential thermoelectric material with good chemical and thermal stability as well as an excellent Seebeck coefficient. However, the extremely low carrier concentration brings poor electrical transport properties. Although Gallium (Ga) doping could increase the carrier concentration of ZnO film, its thermoelectric performance is still limited due to the deteriorated Seebeck coefficient and enhanced thermal conductivity. Interface engineering is an effective strategy to decouple electron-phonon interaction for thermoelectric materials. Thus, in this work, GZO (Ga-doped ZnO)/NAZO (Ni, Al co-doped ZnO) multilayer films were designed to further improve the thermoelectric properties of GZO films. It was found that GZO/NAZO multilayer films possessed better electrical conductivity, which was attributed to the increased carrier concentration and Hall mobility. Meanwhile, benefiting from the energy filtering that occurred at GZO/NAZO interfaces, the density of states effective mass increased, resulting in comparable Seebeck coefficient values. Ultimately, an enhanced power factor value of 313 μW m−1 K−2 was achieved in the GZO/NAZO multilayer film, which is almost 46% larger than that of GZO film. This work provides a paradigm to optimize the thermoelectric performance of oxide films and other thermoelectric systems by multilayer structure design with coherent interfaces. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Thermoelectric Thin Films)
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18 pages, 3357 KiB  
Article
An Electrochemical Investigation of Methanol Oxidation on Thin Films of Nickel Oxide and Its Composites with Zirconium and Yttrium Oxides
by Karishma Mahmood, Muhammad Adil Mansoor, Mudassir Iqbal, Abul Kalam, Javed Iqbal, Asim Jilani and S. Wageh
Crystals 2022, 12(4), 534; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst12040534 - 11 Apr 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2215
Abstract
The present work is focused on the fabrication of NiO-ZrO2/FTO and NiO-Y2O3/FTO thin films via a simple dip-coating method. The films are deposited from precursor solutions of Ni(CH3COO)2·2H2O, Zr(CH3COO) [...] Read more.
The present work is focused on the fabrication of NiO-ZrO2/FTO and NiO-Y2O3/FTO thin films via a simple dip-coating method. The films are deposited from precursor solutions of Ni(CH3COO)2·2H2O, Zr(CH3COO)4, Y(CH3COO)3·H2O in methanol. The synthesized films, after proper characterization, are employed for electrochemical oxidation of methanol. The analytical techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, and Infrared (IR) spectroscopy reveal the successful formation of crystalline thin films of mixed metal oxide without any additional impurities. Further, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results, confirm the composition and oxidation state of all the elements present in thin films. The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) further aided to identify the uniformity and porous nature of composite thin films while the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) confirms the targeted elemental composition of the prepared thin films is in good agreement with precursors. The electrochemical oxidation of methanol results reveals that NiO-Y2O3/FTO and NiO-ZrO2/FTO thin films showed current densities of 6.2 mA/cm2 and 10 mA/cm2 at 0.65 V, respectively, against Ag/AgCl/3M KCl using 0.6 M methanol solution. Furthermore, Chronoamperometric (CA) results show good stability of NiO-ZrO2/FTO and NiO-Y2O3/FTO thin films with observed current decay of 10% and 6.8% of the initial current density, respectively. Moreover, the effect of scan rate and concentration of metals in a catalyst was also investigated. The Electrochemical impedance studies (EIS) further support electrochemical results, where the lower charge transfer resistance (Rct) values are recorded for composite thin films as compared to the pure metal oxide thin films (NiO/FTO, ZrO2/FTO, and Y2O3/FTO). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Thermoelectric Thin Films)
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