Award Date

12-2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Physics

Department

Physics and Astronomy

First Committee Member

Andrew Cornelius, Chair

Second Committee Member

Lon Spight

Third Committee Member

Tao Pang

Graduate Faculty Representative

Clemens Heske

Number of Pages

150

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials have long been investigated for possible use as power sources. This application was recently put to use in the Voyager space program, powering the deep space probes. Despite the usefulness of these materials, the use of pressure to investigate the material properties has only recently become interesting. As such, the work in this document was to developing a system for concurrently measuring the necessary properties. This system is capable of measuring the electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity, and Seebeck coefficient in the pressure range from 0 - 10 GPa. The results for zinc, almandine garnet, and nickel are presented and demonstrate the capabilities of the system. In addition, results are presented for selected established (Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3, BiSbTe3) and potential (GaTe, InTe, and InGaTe2) thermoelectric materials. The measurements have been made with pressure up to 10 GPa (transport properties, except heat capacity) or 20 GPa (structure). From these measured properties, it is possible to evaluate how pressure effects the interactions.

Keywords

Electric conductivity; Electrical conductivity; High pressure (Sience); High pressure (Technology); Seebeck coefficient; Thermal conductivity; Thermoelectric materials; Thermoelectrics; Transport

Disciplines

Condensed Matter Physics | Engineering Physics | Physics

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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