Thermoelectrics have attracted increasing attention as a sustainable and flexible source of electricity able to meet a wide range of power requirements. Their application is wide as they could be used as main source of electricity as in satellites or used to increase efficiency of thermal processes in industries or cars or any other application where temperature gradients exist to produce electricity. The conversion efficiency of thermoelectrics materials is determined by the dimensionless figure of merit,
zT, which depends on the thermal and electrical conductivity, the Seebeck coefficient and the temperature. These transport properties are closely related to the micro-/nanostructure of the investigated thermoelectrics materials which can be modified by the processing methods and chemical compositions.
[more]