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A2: Medium temperature materials
As John Corbett wrote “It is always difficult to predict the unimaginable”, hence the endless need for exploratory research. Closely associated to this research, the serendipitous discovery of interesting and first-class physical properties, including thermoelectric properties, is also at stake. We have thus embarked in the systematic exploration of different intermetallic systems.
In order to “force the chance”, we do not have any restriction on the choice of the elements used, thus we consider that toxicity or cost are irrelevant issues at this stage. Rather, we focused on required structure – properties relationships in order to maximize the probability to obtain interesting transport properties. Features that fit that bill are numerous, but essentially, complex structure and a clear separation between the anionic and cationic sub-networks are amongst our prerequisites.
In this contribution, the first result of our systematic exploration will show that in certain systems (selenides and tellurides), thermal and electronic transport properties are promising and that the richness of these systems probably still hides good thermoelectric materials.
