Teaching - Nanostructured thermoelectric materials

Course: ECEN 5060

Class meeting: TTH 8:30-9:50 am

Office hours: TTH: 9:50-10:50 am

Instructor: Dr. Daryoosh Vashaee

Contact: (918) 459-8017; daryoosh.vashaee@okstate.edu

Text:

Thermoelectrics Handbook: Macro to Nano, D. M. Rowe, 2006 & CRC Handbook of Thermoelectrics, D. M. Rowe, 1995

Grading Procedure:

Homework: 30% Project: 40% Final exam: 30%

Please review the OSU Administrative Regulations and Student Policies as found in the OSU Catalog.

Anyone who has any disability or need which requires special attention should make this known

to both myself and the ECEN Department.

Course syllabus:

The course goes over the basic phenomenology of the contributing terms to the thermoelectric effect, i.e., the Seebeck coefficient, the electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity, which are analyzed through the Boltzmann transport formalism. A thorough comparison of recent experiments in nanostructures is presented. Advanced subject such as carrier scattering time approximations in relation to dimensionality and the density of states are also studied. Solid state implementations of thermionic structures towards thermoelectric devices are further discussed. Different approaches for further increasing efficiencies are discussed including energy filtering, quantum confinement, size effects, band structure engineering, and phonon confinement.