Another Nature article for Jim Heath and colleagues
James R. Heath, NSBCC Director, and colleagues have authored a paper entitled "Silicon nanowires as highly efficient thermoelectric materials," which appears in today's issue of the jorunal Nature.
For this report, the group measured the efficiency for a silicon nanowire-based thermoelectric device of ~10%. This represents a 100-fold improvement over bulk silicon and also is the largest measured efficiency for a single-component system. Thermoelectrics convert temperature diffences into electricty, and vice cersa. They contain no moving parts or toxic gasses, which are found in conventional power generators and refrigerators, making them highly reliable and are nearly maintenance-free.
Other authors for this paper are Akram