Enhancement of thermoelectric power factor in composite thermoelectrics

An approach is described for obtaining improved values for the thermoelectric power factor by making a composite where one constituent is a "high quality thermoelectric" while the other constituent is a "benign metal", with large electrical and thermal conductivities but poor thermoelectric properties. As an example, the authors show calculated results for a composite mixture of Cu and of the high quality thermoelectric alloy (Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/)/sub 0.2/(Sb/sub 2/Te/sub 3/)/sub 0.8/.