Editing Tellurium (section)

=== Thermoelectric material ===
Tellurium itself can be used as a high-performance elemental thermoelectric material. A trigonal Te with the space group of P3<sub>1</sub>21 can transfer into a topological insulator phase, which is suitable for thermoelectric material. Though often not considered as a thermoelectric material alone, polycrystalline tellurium does show great thermoelectric performance with the thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, as high as 1.0, which is even higher than some of other conventional TE materials like SiGe and BiSb.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Lin |first1=Siqi |last2=Li |first2=Wen |last3=Chen |first3=Zhiwei |last4=Shen |first4=Jiawen |last5=Ge |first5=Binghui |last6=Pei |first6=Yanzhong |date=2016-01-11 |title=Tellurium as a high-performance elemental thermoelectric |journal=Nature Communications |language=en |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=10287 |doi=10.1038/ncomms10287 |pmid=26751919 |pmc=4729895 |bibcode=2016NatCo...710287L |issn=2041-1723}}</ref>

Telluride, which is a compound form of tellurium, is a more common TE material. Typical and ongoing research includes Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub>, and La<sub>3−x</sub>Te<sub>4</sub>, etc. Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub> is widely used from energy conversion to sensing to cooling due to its great TE properties. The BiTe-based TE material can achieve a conversion efficiency of 8%, an average zT value of 1.05 for p-type and 0.84 for n-type bismuth telluride alloys.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nozariasbmarz |first1=Amin |last2=Poudel |first2=Bed |last3=Li |first3=Wenjie |last4=Kang |first4=Han Byul |last5=Zhu |first5=Hangtian |last6=Priya |first6=Shashank |date=2020-07-24 |title=Bismuth Telluride Thermoelectrics with 8% Module Efficiency for Waste Heat Recovery Application |journal=iScience |language=en |volume=23 |issue=7 |pages=101340 |doi=10.1016/j.isci.2020.101340 |pmid=32688286 |pmc=7369584 |bibcode=2020iSci...23j1340N |issn=2589-0042}}</ref> Lanthanum telluride can be potentially used in deep space as a thermoelectric generator due to the huge temperature difference in space. The zT value reaches to a maximum of ~1.0 for a La<sub>3−x</sub>Te<sub>4</sub> system with x near 0.2. This composition also allows other chemical substitution which may enhance the TE performance. The addition of Yb, for example, may increase the zT value from 1.0 to 1.2 at 1275K, which is greater than the current SiGe power system.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=May |first1=Andrew |last2=Snyder |first2=Jeff |last3=Fleurial |first3=Jean-Pierre |last4=El-Genk |first4=Mohamed S. |date=2008 |title=Lanthanum Telluride: Mechanochemical Synthesis of a Refractory Thermoelectric Material |url=http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.2845029 |journal=AIP Conference Proceedings |language=en |location=Albuquerque (New Mexico) |publisher=AIP |volume=969 |pages=672–678 |doi=10.1063/1.2845029|bibcode=2008AIPC..969..672M }}</ref>