Dense semiconductor-insulator nanocomposites for navy thermoelectric applications

This work is directed at the fabrication and optical characterization of anisotropic semiconductor composites with improved thermoelectric properties. Specifically, the quest is to dramatically improve the thermoelectric figure-of-merit, ZT, with an emphasis on the effects of "nanoconfinement", and on the crystallographic properties which provide an increase in the electrical-to-thermal conductivity ratio. Current work entails the fabrication of force-oriented nanostructural confinement of Bismuth (Bi) and Bismuth Telluride (Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/).