Min Sun,Pengyu Zhang,Qingmin Li,Guowu Tang,Ting Zhang,Dongdan Chen,Qi Qian
N-type bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) based thermoelectric (TE) fibers were fabricated by thermal drawing and Bridgman annealing, and the influence of Bridgman annealing on the TE properties of n-type Bi2Te3-based TE fibers was studied. The Bridgman annealing enhanced the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient because of increasing crystalline orientation and decreasing detrimental elemental enrichment. The TE performance of n-type Bi2Te3-based TE fibers was improved significantly by enhancing the power factor. Hence the power factor increased from 0.14 to 0.93 mW/mK2, and the figure-of-merit value is from 0.11 to 0.43 at ~300 K, respectively.Keywords:n-type Bi2Te3;thermoelectric fibers;thermal drawing;Bridgman annealing
Bin Han,Qianhang Luo,Pengyu Zhang,Ting Zhang,Guowu Tang,Zhe Chen,Hang Zhang,Baoan Zhong,Yunhao Zeng,Min Sun,Qi Qian,Zhongmin Yang
In the field of multimaterial optical fibers, the demand for high-performance single-crystal core glass-clad multimaterial optical fibers is increasing. However, the applications of single-crystal fibers are restricted by the complex fabrication processes and the slow growth of single-crystal materials. Here, a two-step method is demonstrated to achieve single-crystal tellurium (Te) core fibers with high crystal quality over the length of the fiber. This method starts with the thermal drawing of a fiber preform into polycrystalline Te core multimaterial fibers (precursor fibers) that are long and mechanically stable. A 532-nm continuous laser is then employed to recrystallize the Te core in the precursor fiber into a single crystal state along the entire length of the fiber. Experimental studies of these single-crystal fibers demonstrate that the single-crystal Te core fibers possess high transmittance (>90% at 2–10 μm) and high thermoelectric performance (ZT values from 0.03 to 0.13 at 300 K temperature). They are superior to previous reports and our previous work. This method works for fabricating various single-crystal fibers and has important applications in the field of optical fibers, functional fibers, and their integrated devices.
Chen Mengxiao,Wang Zhe,Zhang Qichong,Wang Zhixun,Liu Wei,Chen Ming,Wei Lei
The well-developed preform-to-fiber thermal drawing technique owns the benefit to maintain the cross-section architecture and obtain an individual micro-scale strand of fiber with the extended length up to thousand meters. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a two-step soluble-core fabrication method by combining such an inherently scalable manufacturing method with simple post-draw processing to explore the low viscosity polymer fibers and the potential of soft fiber electronics. As a result, an ultra-stretchable conductive fiber is achieved, which maintains excellent conductivity even under 1900% strain or 1.5 kg load/impact freefalling from 0.8-m height. Moreover, by combining with triboelectric nanogenerator technique, this fiber acts as a self-powered self-adapting multi-dimensional sensor attached on sports gears to monitor sports performance while bearing sudden impacts. Next, owing to its remarkable waterproof and easy packaging properties, this fiber detector can sense different ion movements in various solutions, revealing the promising applications for large-area undersea detection.