ICT2014 Abstracts

We present an online simulation tool that can be used to teach carrier transport physics in semiconductors, and calculate the detailed material properties of thermoelectric materials with convenient graphical user interfaces. The simulation tool is implemented on nanoHUB.org, the web-based online simulation environment at Purdue University, so that users can run simulations on any Java-enabled web interface without the need to install expensive commercial software. This tool allows users to optimize material properties such as thermoelectric figure of merit with various parameters related to the material’s band structure and scattering characteristics based on the near-equilibrium Boltzmann transport equations. Users can create a band structure modeled as multiple nonparabolic bands with band parameters as a function of material composition and temperature, and calculate the Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, mobility, electronic thermal conductivity including the bipolar contribution, and the thermoelectric figure of merit once the lattice thermal conductivity is given as an input for the material. The tool also provides differential conductivity and density of states analysis, which can be very useful for educating students on various novel strategies for power factor enhancement, such as band convergence, and electron energy filtering. Finally, we present a compilation of three different simulation tools including the one presented here for multi-level simulations from material properties to system-level analysis for thermoelectric research and education.