The Physics of Electric Field Effect Thermoelectric Devices

We describe here a novel approach to the subject of thermoelectric devices. The current best thermoelectrics are based on heavily doped semiconductors or semimetal alloys. We show that utilization of electric field effect or ferroelectric field effect, not only provides a new route to this problem, bypassing the drawbacks of conventional doping, but also offers significantly improved thermoelectric characteristics. We present here model calculation of the thermoelectric figure of merit in thin films of Bi and PbTe, and also discuss several realistic device designs.