N-type carbon nanotubes/silver telluride nanohybrid buckypaper with a high-thermoelectric figure of merit

n-Type thermoelectric (TE) materials was made from carbon nanotube (CNT) buckypapers. We used silver telluride (Ag₂Te) to achieve electron injection to the CNTs. The TE characterizations on more than 50 samples show that the CNTs/Ag₂Te hybrids exhibit negative Seebeck coefficients (e.g., n-type) from -30 to -228 μV/K. Meanwhile, the tunneling coupling between the CNTs and Ag₂Te increase the electrical conductance to the range of 10-000-20-000 S/m, which is higher than each single component (CNTs or Ag₂Te). These n-type TE buckypapers are flexible and robust with ZT values of 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than previously reproted for CNT-based TE materials. In addition, the preparation of such buckypapers are very simple compared to a tranditonal inorganic process, without the need for hot pressing or spark sintering. These n-type TE buckypapers can provide important components for fabricating CNT-based flexible TE devices with good conversion efficiency.