Thermoelectric Properties of Electrodeposited Bismuth Telluride Thin Films by Thermal Annealing and Homogeneous Electron Beam Irradiation

Abstract

We investigated the effects of thermal annealing and homogeneous electron beam (EB) irradiation on the structural and thermoelectric properties of electrodeposited bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) thin films. Bi2Te3 thin films were prepared by potentiostatic electrodeposition using a standard three-electrode cell. It was found that the thermal annealing contributed to enhance the crystallographic properties, leading to the increase of the thermoelectric properties. The maximum thermoelectric property (power factor) was 6.0 μW/(cm∙K2) by the thermal annealing. In addition, the Bi2Te3 thin films obtained relatively high (1 1 0) crystal orientation. On the other hand, the homogeneous EB irradiation treatment did not contribute to increase the crystallographic properties, so the thermoelectric properties of the EB irradiated thin films were mostly the same as that of the as-deposited thin films.