Carbon-Based Materials for Thermoelectrics

Figure 3

Origin of electricity under an external electrical bias (voltage) and thermoelectricity under a temperature bias. (a) A typical elastic conductor in the Landauer-Datta-Lundstrom model, in which a voltage is exerted by an external power source, e.g., battery. An electric current is resulted from the external electric bias, owing to the mismatch between the Fermi-Dirac distributions of the two contacts. (b) Schematic of an n-type thermoelectric generator consisting of two contacts maintained at different temperatures. The temperature bias causes a difference in the shape of the Fermi-Dirac distributions at the two contacts, thus leading to thermoelectricity.

(a) Conductor under external voltage

(b) n-type TE generator under temperature bias