| 摘要 |
Embodiments of a thermoelectric material having high cross-plane electrical conductivity in the presence of one or more Seebeck coefficient enhancing potential barriers and methods of fabrication thereof are disclosed. In one embodiment, a thermoelectric material includes a first matrix material layer, a barrier layer, and a second matrix material layer. The barrier layer is a short-period superlattice structure that includes multiple superlattice layers. Each superlattice layer has a high energy sub-band and a low energy sub-band. For each superlattice layer, the energy level of the high energy sub-band of the superlattice layer is resonant with the energy level of the low energy level sub-band of an adjacent superlattice layer and/or the energy level of the low energy sub-band of the superlattice layer is resonant with the energy level of the high energy sub-band of an adjacent superlattice layer. As a result, cross-plane electrical conductivity of the thermoelectric material is improved.
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