By doping a thermoelectric material with minute amounts of sulfur, a team of researchers has found a new path to large improvements in the efficiency of materials for solid-state heating and cooling and waste energy recapture. This approach profoundly alters the electronic band structure of the material – bismuth telluride selenide—improving the so-called "figure of merit," a ranking of a material's performance that determines efficiency in applications and opening the door to advanced applications of thermoelectric materials to harvest waste heat from power plants to computer chips.
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