Effect of Thickness of Single-Phase Antimony and Tellurium Thin Films on Their Thermal Conductivities.

Abstract

We present the effects of film thickness and grain size on the out-of-plane thermal conductivities of single-phase Sb and Te thin films, which are of great interest for thermoelectric device applications. The thermal conductivities of the films were measured by the four-point-probe 3Ωo method, at room temperature. For this study, 50-, 100-, and 200-nm-thick Sb and Te thin films were prepared by electron-beam evaporation at room temperature. From the measured thermal conductivities, we evaluated that the average thermal conductivities of the Sb and Te thin films were 5.9-10.2 W/(m x K) and 0.8-1.2 W/(m x K), respectively, at room temperature. This result reveals that the thickness and grain size of each thin film strongly affect the modulation of its thermal conductivity at room temperature.