BILC, D: Electronic and Transport Properties of NovelThermoe

In recent years there have been a revival of interestin discovering and understanding the physicalproperties of novel thermoelectric (TE) materialswith high figure of merit. These materials areprimarily narrow band gap semiconductors. In thisbook, electronic structure calculations were carriedout for several narrow band gap chalcogenide TEmaterials in order to understand their electronic andtransport properties governing their TEcharacteristics. These calculations were performedwithin DFT whereas the transport calculations werecarried out using Boltzmann transport equations. Theeffect of quantum confinement created by the surfacesof Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 (impact of interlayer bonding)and their superlattice electronic properties wereinvestigated. The complex materials (K2Bi8Se13,AgPbmSbTe2+m (LAST-m)) were studied. For PbTe andLAST-m materials, which are among the best bulk TE athigh temperatures, transport calculations wereperformed. This study should be useful toprofessionals in the field of thermoelectricity, oranyone interested in electronic and transportproperties of narrow gap semiconductors.