Abstract

In last two decades, Half Heusler (HH) alloys proved themselves as a potential candidate for thermoelectric devices. This is not only due to their structural capability for demonstrating and integrating various new concepts to enhance the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) but also high thermal stability which is advantageous for thermoelectric devices. However, most of the efficient HH alloys consist of expensive elements which resist their commercial application. This encouraged the development of highly efficient Fe-based Full Heusler (FH) alloys which have almost similar advantages of HH alloys along with the economical benefit. The main challenge in Fe-based FH as efficient thermoelectric as HH alloys is the reduction of lattice thermal conductivity and optimization of carrier concentration. This could be done through the use of concepts like bulk nanostructuring/bulk nanocomposite and more recently introduced Panoscopic approach or all scale hierarchical architecturing engineering and band structure engineering. In this review, we firstly discussed about the current progress on Fe-based FH alloys along with the challenges in enhancing the figure of merits. Herein, we also discussed various approaches adopted in bulk as well as nanostructured FH alloys to circumvent the interdependency of parameters in achieving higher ZT. It ends with discussion of the future trends for Fe-based FH thermoelectric materials for waste heat recovery. Through this review, we not only explain the probability of finding efficient thermoelectric in Fe-based FH alloys but also give a blueprint for enhancing ZT in many other thermoelectric materials.

中文翻译：

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铁基霍斯勒合金作为热电材料的研究现状与展望

摘要

在过去的二十年中，Half Heusler（HH）合金证明自己是热电设备的潜在候选者。这不仅是因为它们具有论证和整合各种新概念以增强热电性能因数（ZT）以及高的热稳定性，这对于热电设备是有利的。但是，大多数有效的HH合金都是由昂贵的元素组成，这些元素阻碍了它们的商业应用。这鼓励了高效铁基全霍斯勒（FH）合金的开发，该合金具有与HH合金几乎相似的优点以及经济利益。与HH合金一样，铁基FH作为高效热电合金的主要挑战是降低晶格热导率和优化载流子浓度。这可以通过使用诸如块体纳米结构/本体纳米复合材料以及最近引入的Panoscopic方法或所有规模的分层结构工程和能带结构工程等概念来完成。在这篇评论中 我们首先讨论了铁基FH合金的最新进展，以及提高性能的挑战。在本文中，我们还讨论了在本体以及纳米结构的FH合金中采用的各种方法，以规避参数之间的相互依赖性，以实现更高的ZT。最后讨论了用于废热回收的铁基FH热电材料的未来趋势。通过这篇综述，我们不仅解释了在铁基FH合金中找到有效热电的可能性，而且给出了在许多其他热电材料中增强ZT的蓝图。