Room-Temperature Thermoelectric Conversion by Dipole-Enhanced Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling

作者：Xuefei Duan, Ji‐Chang Ren, Xiaowei Zhang, Shuang Li, Wei Liu · 发表于：Cell Reports Physical Science · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1016/j.xcrp.2020.100284 · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices、2D Materials and Applications、Quantum and electron transport phenomena

The development of the Internet of Things requires devices that are light, wireless, and wearable. With no cable for power and limited space for a battery, powering these devices becomes a daunting challenge. Wearable devices that are self-powered through harvesting heat from surroundings may address this challenge; however, conventional thermoelectric materials suffer either from poor mechanical stability or low room-temperature conversion efficiency. Based on density functional theory and Boltzmann transport calculations, we propose that monolayer WSTe promises a wearable thermoelectric material that exploits the synergic effects between the Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling and out-of-plane electric dipole. The maximum calculated room-temperature ZT value reaches 0.41, which is among the best 2D wearable thermoelectrics. Moreover, monolayer WSTe should possess an in-plane stiffness of ∼100 N/m and a fracture point up to 25%. Our study may shed light on the synergistic effects of electric dipole and Rashba spin-splitting on thermoelectric conversion for wearable electronics.