Abstract/Summary

Research in thermoelectric materials involves the synthesis, structural characterisation and measurement of thermal and electronic transport properties. It spans the fields of solid-state chemistry, condensed matter physics, materials science and engineering. This chapter provides an introduction, accessible to those with little prior experience in the field, to the synthetic approaches used for the preparation of thermoelectric materials, and to the measurement techniques employed for the characterisation of their transport properties. Methods for the preparation of powder and single-crystal samples are presented, together with the processes commonly used for the consolidation of samples into well-densified ingots. The measurement techniques for the properties required for the determination of the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, are described, together with their limitations and possible sources of error. Alternative approaches for the direct determination of ZT are also outlined, together with Hall coefficient measurements, reflecting the importance of charge-carrier concentration and mobility to the detailed understanding of thermoelectric materials.