The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 16, 2008
Filed:
Oct. 29, 2004
Gang Chen, Carlisle, MA (US);
Zhifeng Ren, Newton, MA (US);
Mildred Dresselhaus, Arlington, MA (US);
Gang Chen, Carlisle, MA (US);
Zhifeng Ren, Newton, MA (US);
Mildred Dresselhaus, Arlington, MA (US);
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
The Trustees of Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (US);
Abstract
The present invention is generally directed to nanocomposite thermoelectric materials that exhibit enhanced thermoelectric properties. The nanocomposite materials include two or more components, with at least one of the components forming nano-sized structures within the composite material. The components are chosen such that thermal conductivity of the composite is decreased without substantially diminishing the composite's electrical conductivity. Suitable component materials exhibit similar electronic band structures. For example, a band-edge gap between at least one of a conduction band or a valence band of one component material and a corresponding band of the other component material at interfaces between the components can be less than about 5kT, wherein kis the Boltzman constant and T is an average temperature of said nanocomposite composition.