381 research outputs found
Nanoscale clusters in the high performance thermoelectric AgPbmSbTem+2
The local structure of the AgPbmSbTem+2 series of thermoelectric materials
has been studied using the atomic pair distribution function (PDF) method.
Three candidate-models were attempted for the structure of this class of
materials using either a one-phase or a two-phase modeling procedure. Combining
modeling the PDF with HRTEM data we show that AgPbmSbTem+2 contains nanoscale
inclusions with composition close to AgPb3SbTe5 randomly embedded in a PbTe
matrix.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PR
Structural compliance, misfit strain and stripe nanostructures in cuprate superconductors
Structural compliance is the ability of a crystal structure to accommodate
variations in local atomic bond-lengths without incurring large strain
energies. We show that the structural compliance of cuprates is relatively
small, so that short, highly doped, Cu-O-Cu bonds in stripes are subject to a
tensile misfit strain. We develop a model to describe the effect of misfit
strain on charge ordering in the copper oxygen planes of oxide materials and
illustrate some of the low energy stripe nanostructures that can result.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure
Nanoscale alpha-structural domains in the phonon-glass thermoelectric material beta-Zn4Sb3
A study of the local atomic structure of the promising thermoelectric material beta-Zn4Sb3, using atomic pair distribution function (PDF) analysis of x-ray- and neutron-diffraction data, suggests that the material is nanostructured. The local structure of the beta phase closely resembles that of the low-temperature alpha phase. The alpha structure contains ordered zinc interstitial atoms which are not long range ordered in the beta phase. A rough estimate of the domain size from a visual inspection of the PDF is <~10 nm. It is probable that the nanoscale domains found in this study play an important role in the exceptionally low thermal conductivity of beta-Zn4Sb3
- …