Summary

Description

<p><strong>The objective of this project is to precisely control the flow of thermal, electrical and thermoelectrical energy by advancing the development of a new class of thermoelectric (TE) materials. The goals of this project are to (1) optimize metamaterial structure so power generation efficiency can be increased; (2) synthesize high power factor materials once deemed inappropriate for efficient thermoelectrical operation due to their large thermal conductivity; (3) assemble and test a thermoelectric module with an optimized TE metamaterial; and then finally, (4) characterize, on a micron scale, the thermal behavior of the metamaterial. Thermal behavior must be experimentally characterized, under a variety of operating conditions, using a research grade infrared (IR) camera. The results will enable validation studies with finite element models.</strong></p>