Significantly enhanced thermoelectric properties of ultralong double-walled carbon nanotube bundle

A T-type method is developed to comprehensively evaluate the thermoelectric properties of materials. The thermoelectric properties, including thermal conductivity, thermopower, and electrical conductivity of an ultralong double-walled carbon nanotube bundle are studied from 240 K to 340 K by applying the T-type method. The determined figure of merit achieves 10−3 which is significantly larger than that reported for carbon nanotubes samples. The bundle consists of thousands of nanotubes aligned along the long axis with low levels of impurities, and the thermal conductivity is significantly reduced compared to that of individual double-walled nanotube, while the electrical conductivity is superior to most of the carbon nanotubes samples.