Thermoelectric properties of Si/SiB3 sub-micro composite prepared by melt-spinning technique

Abstract

This study presents a new self-assembly process to form a fine structure in bulk Si. We fabricated a semiconducting composite material consisting of sub-micro-sized (100–500 nm) SiB3 precipitates distributed in a Si matrix whose grain size was on the order of microns. The sub-micro-sized SiB3 particles were precipitated during the spark plasma sintering process of a metastable Si-B (Si:B = 92:8) supersaturated solid solution prepared by the melt-spinning technique. The composite was a heavily doped (5 × 1020 cm−3) p-type semiconductor. The SiB3 precipitates did not affect the Seebeck coefficient, slightly reduced the carrier mobility, and greatly reduced the lattice thermal conductivity. Specifically, the lattice thermal conductivity was reduced by 44% compared with that of p-type Si without precipitates at room temperature. The SiB3 precipitates improved the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT from 0.17 to 0.23 at 1073 K, which indicates that the formation of small precipitates effectively improves the thermoelectric performance of Si-based thermoelectric materials.