Abstract
The method to optimize nanostructures of silicon thin films as thermoelectric materials is developed. The simulated annealing method is utilized for predicting the optimized structure. The mean free path and thermal conductivity of thin films, which are the objective function of optimization, is evaluated by using phonon transport simulations and lattice dynamics calculations. In small systems composed of square lattices, the simulated annealing method successfully predicts optimized structure corroborated by an exhaustive search. This fact indicates that the simulated annealing method is an effective tool for optimizing nanostructured thin films as thermoelectric materials.
Highlights
The method to optimize nanostructures of silicon thin films as thermoelectric materials is developed
Thermoelectric power generators composed of silicon nanostructures have been reported[2,3,4]
The results show that the thermal conductivity can be decreased by more than 10 Wm−1 K−1 via nanostructuring
Summary
The method to optimize nanostructures of silicon thin films as thermoelectric materials is developed. In small systems composed of square lattices, the simulated annealing method successfully predicts optimized structure corroborated by an exhaustive search. Modulated nanowires, which are similar structures with porous films, have been fabricated from silicon on insulators[18,19,20,21,22,23] These nanostructured silicon thin films have exhibited notable thermal conductivity reduction. Numerical approaches have been used to optimize nanostructures as thermoelectric materials since thermal conductivity prediction is available before the fabrication. Many numerical studies have focused on predicting the thermal conductivity of silicon nanostructures, including silicon porous thin films[13,35,36,37,38] and modulated n anowires[21,39,40].
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