Tuning the electronic and thermal transport behaviors of metal-dispersed Ti2O3 composites derived by metal–insulator transition

Thermal management requires an understanding of the relations among the thermal energy transfer, electronic properties, and structures of thermoconductive materials. Here, we enhanced the metal–insulator transition (MIT)-induced effect on the thermal conductivities of microstructure-controlled Ti2O3 composites containing W as a thermal conductive filler at approximately 450 K. To change the electronic and thermal transport properties, we varied the particle radii of the conductive phases in the raw material. The change in the calculated electronic thermal conductivity relative to the electrical conductivity of the Wx(Ti2O3)1−x composite was enhanced by compounding the material. When x was reduced from 50 vol% to 20 vol% and the W particle diameter was reduced from 150 μm to 5 μm, the variation in the estimated electronic thermal conductivity of the Wx(Ti2O3)1−x composite was increased by a factor of 2.01. The total thermal conductivity was also changed by the MIT. At x = 50 vol% and a W particle diameter of 5 μm, the maximum thermal conductivity change was 6.34 times larger than that of pure Ti2O3. The detailed relation between the MIT-induced changes in thermal transport and the microstructure were elucidated in classical effective medium approximations.