Enhanced thermoelectric performance through carrier scattering at spherical nanoparticles in Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3/Ta2O5 composites

The greatest challenge is to elevate the thermoelectric figure of merit of existing materials via enhancing their power factor and reducing the thermal conductivity using nanocomposite approach. In this work, Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 (BST) based composites dispersed with new type of insulating Ta2O5 nanoparticles (NPs) were fabricated using high energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering, and their thermoelectric properties were investigated. The...