Readings

After each week's lecture, read the following texts for more information on each topic. Write a one-page report of your findings and turn it in at the next week's lecture. Missing more than two reports will result in failing the course.

WEEK # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction Buy at Amazon Chen, Gang. Nanoscale Energy Transport and Conversion. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780195159424.
2 Thermoelectric effect and thermoelectric devices Buy at Amazon Goldsmid, H. J. Thermoelectric Refrigeration. New York, NY: Plenum Press, 1964, chapter 1.
3 Energy states in matter

Bell, Lon E. "Cooling, Heating, Generating Power, and Recovering Waste Heat with Thermoelectric Systems." Science 321 (September 12, 2008): 1457-1461.

Vining, Cronin B. "An Inconvenient Truth About Thermoelectrics." Nature Materials 8 (February 2009): 83-85.
4 Kinetic formulation of thermoelectricity Dresselhaus, Mildred S., et al. "New Directions for Low-Dimensional Thermoelectric Materials." Advanced Materials 19 (2007): 1043-1053.
5 Current research on thermoelectric materials

Poudel, Bed, et al. "High-Thermoelectric Performance of Nanostructured Bismuth Antimony Telluride Bulk Alloys." Science 320 (May 2, 2008): 634-638.

Heremans, Joseph P., et al. "Enhancement of Thermoelectric Efficiency in PbTe by Distortion of the Electronic Density of States." Science 321 (July 25, 2008): 554-557.
6 Thermionic power conversion Hatsopoulos, George N., and Joseph Kaye. "Measured Thermal Efficiences of a Diode Configuration of a Thermo Electron Engine." Journal of Applied Physics 29 (1958): 1124-1125.
7 Photovoltaic cells

Shockley, William, and Hans J. Queisser. "Detailed Balance Limit of Efficiency of p-n Junction Solar Cells." Journal of Applied Physics 32 (March 1961): 510-519.

Henry, C. H. "Limiting Efficiencies of Ideal Single and Multiple Energy Gap Terrestrial Solar Cells." Journal of Applied Physics 51 (August 1980): 4494-4500.
8 Radiative heat transfer

Würfel, Peter, and Wolfgang Ruppel. "Upper Limit of Thermophotovoltaic Solar-Energy Conversion." IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 27 (April 1980): 745-750.

Landsberg, P. T., and G. Tonge. "Thermodynamic Energy Conversion Efficiencies." Journal of Applied Physics 51 (July 1980): R1-R20.
9 Solar concentration and solar thermal technology Winston, R., and H. Hinterberger. "Principles of Cylindrical Concentrators for Solar Energy." Solar Energy 17 (1975): 255-258.
10 Guest Lecture: Chris Schuh, "Nanostructured Materials: Stability Against Thermal Coarsening." Detor, A. J., and C. A. Schuh. "Microstructural Evolution During the Heat Treatment of Nanocrystalline Alloys." Journal of Materials Research 22 (November 2007): 3233-3248.
11 Guest Lecture: Ivan Čelanović, "Photonic Crystals: Shaping the Flow of Thermal Radiation."

Winn, Joshua N., et al. "Omnidirectional Reflection from a One-dimensional Photonic Crystal." Optics Letters 23 (October 1998): 1573-1575.

Čelanović, Ivan, et al. "Design and Optimization of One-dimensional Photonic Crystals for Thermophotovoltaic Applications." Optics Letters 29 (April 2004): 863-865.
12 Applications of thermoelectrics and photovoltaics