The discovery of high performance thermoelectric materials would enable the development of a wide range of new thermal and electrical energy management technologies, including the possibility of solid state cryogenic coolers. Such discoveries have been sharply inhibited to date, however, by the contraindicated nature of the material properties that comprise the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. Enhancement of ZT generally requires overcoming significant materials science and engineering challenges that become even more restrictive at low temperatures. One possible approach for overcoming these challenges is to shift away from conventional semiconductors and toward strongly correlated electron materials, as these systems often display unusual combinations of electronic and thermal properties that may be exploited to achieve high ZT in the cryogenic temperature regime.This perspective has motivated the current work, in which the thermoelectric properties of strongly correlated CePd3 and related compounds are explored. This work presents a comprehensive and systematic study of the ways in which composition and processing modifications affect the electronic, thermal, magnetic, and structural properties of these materials. The insights gained from this study have led to the highest ZT value reported to date of all p-type bulk polycrystalline materials at low temperatures. A detailed review of these developments is provided along with a discussion of how they may be applied to achieve further enhancements in ZT.
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