While the thermoelectric materials figure of merit is a well defined metric to evaluate thermoelectric materials, it can be a poor metric for maximum thermoelectric device efficiency because of the temperature dependence of the Seebeck coefficient S, the electrical resistivity ρ, and the thermal conductivity κ where T is the absolute temperature. Historically the field has used a thermoelectric device figure of merit ZT to characterize a device operating between a hot side temperature T_h and cold side temperature T_c. While there are many approximate methods to calculate ZT from temperature dependent materials properties, an exact method is given here that uses a simple algorithm that can be performed on a spreadsheet calculator. The figure of merit is defined for a thermoelectric generator using the maximum efficiency of the thermoelectric device η calculated from the exact method.

中文翻译：

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由材料特性定义的热电装置的优值ZT

而品质因数的热电材料图形被明确定义的指标来评价热电材料，也可以是由于塞贝克系数的温度相关性的最大热电器件效率的差度量小号，电阻率ρ，以及热导率κ，其中T是绝对温度。历史上，该领域使用热电器件的品质因数ZT来表征在热侧温度T _h和冷侧温度T _c之间运行的器件。虽然有许多近似方法可以计算ZT根据与温度相关的材料特性，此处给出了一种精确的方法，该方法使用可以在电子表格计算器上执行的简单算法。使用根据精确方法计算出的热电设备的最大效率η为热电发电机定义品质因数。