Single crystal flux growths of thermoelectric materials

Abstract

We review recent achievements in single crystal flux growths for selected families of novel candidate materials for thermoelectric conversion applications, and the resulting contributions towards a better understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in optimizing their intrinsic thermoelectric figures of merit, ZT. We also take the opportunity to compile a small list of tips and tricks that we and other researchers have developed over the years to facilitate or optimize flux growths in general – those finer details that do not normally make it into mainstream research publications.

Keywords:

• thermoelectric
• flux growth
• Zintl phase, clathrate

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to P.C. Canfield, S.L. Bud’ko, C. Petrovic, T. Takabatake and P.G. Pagliuso for many enlightening discussions and shared experiences regarding crystal growth techniques.