Abstract
The influence of substrate type in boosting thermoelectric properties of co-evaporated Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 films (with 400 nm-thick) is here reported. Optimized power factor values are 2.7 × 10−3 W K−2 m−1 and 1.4 × 10−3 W K−2 m−1 for flexible Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 films, respectively. This is an important result as it is at least 2 times higher than the power factor found in the literature for flexible Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 films. A flexible infrared thermopile sensor was developed with high detectivity (2.50 × 107 cm √HzW−1).
Highlights
Thermoelectric (TE) technology appears as a green energy source due to their direct transformation of small thermal gradients into electric power, and vice-versa, in a renewable manner and without CO2 emissions
The morphology and chemical composition of the films were obtained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX)
In-plane electrical conductivity was measured at room temperature (RT) using the conventional 4-Probe van der Pauw geometry
Summary
Thermoelectric (TE) technology appears as a green energy source due to their direct transformation of small thermal gradients into electric power, and vice-versa, in a renewable manner and without CO2 emissions. Telluride alloys have attracted a great deal of interest because of their potential applications as TE generators, TE coolers and thermal sensors [1,2]. The performance of TE devices is highly dependent on TE properties of constituent materials, namely the Seebeck coefficient (S), the electrical conductivity(σ) and the thermal conductivity (k), according to the figure of merit (ZT), ZT = S2σ/k, where S2σ is related to the power factor, PF. High TE device performance require high ZT and PF values. To get high sensitive thermal sensors, TE materials with high S values are required. Thin films instead of conventional bulk materials opens the possibility to reduce substantially the material amount required, and enable the deposition on flexible substrates, making the devices compatible with modern integrated circuit technology
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