Achievement

Thermoelectrics are solid-state devices for energy conversion that have demonstrated exemplary reliability and longevity in deep space missions (35+ years). The advent of new high efficiency materials have expanded possibilities with increased payloads, decreased costs, and open the technology to greater terrestrial applications such as waste heat recovery. In collaboration with Dr. Jean-Pierre Fleurial of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, James Ma of Prof. Kaner's research group has developed high strength composites of La3-xTe4, a state of the art high temperature thermoelectric material which operates at 1000 °C. The material typically behaves as a brittle ceramic; reinforcing the material enables greater reliability and potentially reduces generator packaging weight. James has presented this work at the 2011 International Conference on Thermoelectrics and the 2012 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting. He is currently finishing materials testing and preparing a manuscript.