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Thermoelectrics

Half-full glasses

The low thermal conductivity of some thermoelectric materials is commonly attributed to rattlers — atoms trapped in oversized cages. Two independent studies now show that rattlers indeed reduce thermal conductivity to glass-like values.

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Figure 1: Phonon glass–electron crystal archetype.

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Vining, C. Half-full glasses. Nature Mater 7, 765–766 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2271

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