Accelerated measurement of electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient for thin-layer thermoelectric materials

Abstract

Compared to the diffusion couple and thin film material library, the thin-layer (also known as thick film) material library with discrete compositions is more suitable for the screening of high performance thermoelectric (TE) materials. However, there are few apparatuses for high throughput characterizing TE properties of thin-layer material library. In this work, a tool with high reliability for effectively and quickly measuring electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient has been successfully developed via using a combination of van der Pauw and quasi-steady state method. The relative measurement errors of the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient are less than 10%, comparable to commercial ZEM-3 equipment. The time to measure the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient at a single temperature point is 4 min, saving up to 61.8% of the time compared to ZEM-3. This will contribute to the screening of novel TE materials from the thin-layer TE material libraries in the future.