The Quest for Novel Thermoelectric Materials

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental concerns regarding refrigerant fluids, as well as the convenience of using non toxic and non expensive materials, have significantly spurred interest in novel, high-performance thermoelectric materials for energy conversion in small-scale power generation and refrigeration devices, including cooling electronic devices and flat-panel solar thermoelectric generators. This search has been mainly fueled by the introduction of new designs and the synthesis of new materials. In fact, the quest for good thermoelectric materials entails the search for solids simultaneously exhibiting extreme properties. On the one hand, they must have very low thermal conductivity values; on the other, they must have both electrical conductivity and high Seebeck coefficient values as well. Since these transport coefficients are not independent among them, but are interrelated, the required task of optimization is a formidable one. Thus, thermoelectric materials provide a full-fledged example of the essential cores of solid state physics, materials science engineering, and structural chemistry working side by side towards the completion of a common goal.

This Special Issue aims to share the latest knowledge and developments in both experimental and fundamental aspects in order to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the underlying structural order and the resulting thermoelectric properties of different bulk materials, ranging from structurally complex inorganic compounds to synthetic polymers or molecular cluster aggregates.

This Special Issue on “The Quest for Novel Thermoelectric Materials” is intended to provide a unique international forum aimed at critically reviewing past and current approaches from different scientific domains, including organic and inorganic chemists, materials engineers, or solid-state physicists.

Prof. Dr. Enrique Maciá Barber
Guest Editor

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• Structurally complex materials
• Band engineering concept
• Aperiodic crystals
• Organic semiconductors
• Molecular crystals and cluster aggregates
• Conducting polymers and molecular wires
• Thermoelectricity at the nanoscale