On the wiedemann-franz law in thermoelectric composites

Abstract: Theoretical analysis of the effect of thermoelectric phenomena on the relation of effective electrical and thermal conductivity in the macroscopically inhomogeneous media is carried out. Plane-layered structures, two-dimensional self-dual and three-dimensional randomly inhomogeneous media are examined. It is shown that the relation of effective electrical to thermal conductivity, which is independent of concentration in so-called Wiedemann-Franz media, in the case of high values of internal thermoelectric figure of merit can be considerably different from the one for the local values in each phase. The decrease of the relation may have negative impact on the effective figure of merit of composites and thus lead to the decrease of thermoelectric devices efficiency.