Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: If fullerene-based thermoelectricity is to become a viable technology, then fullerenes exhibiting both positive and negative Seebeck coefficients are needed. C60 is known to have a negative Seebeck coefficient and therefore in this paper we address the challenge of identifying a positive-Seebeck-coefficient fullerene. We investigated the thermoelectric properties of single-molecule junctions of the exohedral fullerene C50Cl10 connected to gold electrodes and found that it indeed possesses a positive Seebeck coefficient. Furthermore, in common with C60, the Seebeck coefficient can be increased by placing more than one C50Cl10 in series. For a single C50Cl10, we find S = +8 μV K(-1) and for two C50Cl10's in series we find S = +30 μV K(-1). We also find that the C50Cl10 monomer and dimer have power factors of 0.5 × 10(-5) W m(-1) K(-2) and 6.0 × 10(-5) W m(-1) K(-2) respectively. These results demonstrate that exohedral fullerenes provide a new class of thermoelectric materials with desirable properties, which complement those of all-carbon fullerenes, thereby enabling the boosting of the thermovoltage in all-fullerene tandem structures.
Source: Nanoscale
DOI: 10.1039/c6nr02291j
Language: English
Subfield: Materials Chemistry
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Putting spin into carbon nanoelectronics, G14173847, G1530137628, G1893551499, Supramolecular Nanorings for Exploring Quantum Interference, G6479653053, Molecular quantum devices, Quantum Effects in Electronic Nanodevices (QuEEN), "MOLECULAR-SCALE ELECTRONICS: Concepts, Contacts and Stability ""MOLESCO"""
OpenAlex ID: W2474012579