Thermoelectric Skutterudites

This book informs the reader about a fascinating class of materials referred to as skutterudites, the atomic lattice of which has large structural voids that can be filled by a variety of foreign species, spanning from alkali to alkaline to rare earth ions.

Ctirad Uher is a C. Wilbur Peters Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He earned his BSc in physics with the University Medal from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He carried out his graduate studies at the same institution under Professor H. J. Goldsmid on the topic of 'Thermomagnetic effects in bismuth and its dilute alloys', and received his PhD in 1975. Subsequently, Professor Uher was awarded the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship, which he spent at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), National Measurement Laboratory (NML), in Sydney. He then accepted a postdoctoral position at Michigan State University, where he worked with Profs. W. P. Pratt, P. A. Schroeder, and J. Bass on transport properties at ultra-low temperatures. Professor Uher started his academic career in 1980 as an assistant professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. He progressed through the ranks and became full professor in 1989. That same year the University of New South Wales awarded him the title of DSc for his work on transport properties of semimetals. At the University of Michigan, he served as an associate chair of the Department of Physics and subsequently as an associate dean for research at the College of Literature, Sciences and Arts. In 1994, he was appointed as chair of physics, the post he held for the next 10 years. Professor Uher has had more than 45 years of research, described in more than 520 refereed publications in the areas of transport properties of solids, superconductivity, diluted magnetic semiconductors, and thermoelectricity. In the field of thermoelectricity, to which he returned during the past 25 years, he worked on the development of skutterudites, half-Heusler alloys, modified lead telluride materials, magnesium silicide solid solutions, tetrahedrites, and Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)-rown thin films forms of Bi2Te3-based materials. He has written a number of authoritative review articles and has presented his research at numerous national and international conferences as invited and plenary talks. In 1996, he was elected fellow of the American Physical Society. Professor Uher was honored with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Pardubice in the Czech Republic in 2002, and in 2010 was awarded a named professorship at the University of Michigan. He received the prestigious China Friendship Award in 2011. Professor Uher supervised 16 PhD thesis projects and mentored numerous postdoctoral researchers, many of whom are leading scientists in academia and research institutions all over the world. Professor Uher served on the Board of Directors of the International Thermoelectric Society. In 2004-2005, he was elected vice president of the International Thermoelectric Society and during 2006-2008 served as its president.

Contents Preface.......................................................................................................................................xi About the Author.......................................................................................................................xv Chapter 1 Structural Aspects of Skutterudites............................................................................1 Chapter 2 Fabrication of Skutterudites......................................................................................65 Chapter 3 Electronic Energy Band Structure.............................................................................. 91 Chapter 4 Electronic Transport Properties of Skutterudites..................................................... 129 Chapter 5 Thermal Transport Properties of Skutterudites........................................................ 169 Chapter 6 Thermoelectric Properties of Skutterudites.............................................................. 261 Index........................................................................................................................................... 319