We report the growth of silicon nanowires by plasma assisted metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Silicon nanowires grew as three-dimensional networks in which electrical charges and heat can travel over the distance much longer than the mean length of the constituent nanowires. We studied the dependence of thermoelectric properties on two factors; nominal doping concentrations and geometrical factors within the silicon nanowire networks. The silicon nanowire networks show Seebeck coefficients comparable with that of bulk silicon for a given nominal doping concentration, allowing us to control Seebeck coefficients by tuning the doping concentrations. Rather than studying single nanowires, we chose networks of nanowires formed densely across large areas required for large scale production. We also studied the role played by intersections where multiple nanowires were fused to form the nanowire networks. Structural analysis, transport measurement, and modeling based on finite-element analysis were carried out to obtain insights of physical properties at the intersections. Understanding these physical properties of three-dimensional nanowire networks will advance the development of thermoelectric devices.

The Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity and Hall coefficient of FeSbx (x = 2.04, 2.00, and 1.96) nanocomposites hot pressed at 300 °C were measured. The power factor of FeSb1.96 was increased by 105% compared to FeSb2. Hall coefficient measurements revealed a decreased carrier concentration and increased mobility in FeSb1.96 with an overall enhancement in ZTof 45% in FeSb1.96 .

We have modified Sb2Te3 thin film thermoelectric materials by scanning a femtosecond laser across the film surface to create track-like nanostructures. These nanotracks have widths of 50-80 nm and a periodicity of ∼ 130 nm. We show that the nanotrack morphology is highly dependent on laser fluence and scan speed. Moreover, we performed transient thermoreflectance measurements on a laser-irradiated film and found a thermal conductivity reduction of 4.5% in the nanostructured regions compared to that of the unmodified regions. These results suggest the potential use of femtosecond pulsed lasers to create nanostructured thermoelectric materials with improved performance.

Graphene composites (GCs) have attracted much attention recently. It is interesting to explore thermal properties of GCs in which graphene filler concentrations are tunable. Here, we use 3ω method to measure the thermal conductivity of GCs synthesized from reduced graphene oxide (RGO) dispersed in polystyrene. To avoid the detrimental effect of lithography processes to GCs, we have developed a novel method employing polyvinyl alcohol and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a holder film to transfer micrometer-sized metal heaters/sensors onto GC surface. Room temperature measurements of the thermal conductivity of GCs are performed. The thermal conductivity is enhanced by ∼ 35 % when adding 5 vol.% of RGO filler concentration. Our measurements will be helpful to probe and understand the thermal transport properties of graphene based composites.

We report simultaneous measurements of thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient on array-scale silicon nanowires fabricated by metal assisted chemical etching. The measurements are conducted on the solid and the mesoporous nanowire arrays (NWAs) obtained from etching 1 ohm-cm and 0.002 ohm-cm Si substrates respectively. We demonstrate control on sidewall morphology and doping of the arrays that have an aspect ratio up to 20 and 30 % areal coverage. We employ differential frequency-domain measurements, separately on the array and the corresponding substrate to obtain the temperature drop and Seebeck voltage contribution of the nanowire array. The technique is validated by measurements on bulk silicon across the resistivity 0.002-1 ohm-cm. The Seebeck measurements reveal quenching of the phonon drag in the nanowires in comparison to the bulk in the measured temperature range of 300 K- 500 K. The Seebeck coefficient shows a ~18 % decrease in the solid NWAs and ~22 % increase in the mesoporous NWAs at room temperature. The thermal conductivity is close to Casimir limit for the solid wires while it drops to ~2.5 W/mK in the mesoporous nanowires.

We prepared the type-I Ba8AuxSi46-x (x=5.5, 5.4 and 5.33) clathrates with p-type conduction by arc-melting and subsequent annealing. The Seebeck coefficients of all as-synthesized samples were negative. After annealing, in the case of x=5.4 and 5.5, the Seebeck coefficients changed to positive, and in the case of x=5.33, this value was negative for the annealed sample. The chemical composition revealed that Au content in the Ba8AuxSi46-x clathrates increased after the annealing process. The backscattered electron images showed that there were many Au-excess regions which were not clathrate structure in the as-synthesized samples, and these regions decreased and even disappeared after the annealing process. The disappearing of Au-excess regions can be explained by the diffusion of Au atoms from the Au-excess regions into the clathrates. Based on these results, annealing treatment can be used to tune the carrier conduction by controlling the content of Au for type-I Ba8AuxSi46-xclathrates.

We observed significant reduction of thermal conductivity in semiconducting composite films of Si and molybdenum (Mo)-silicide nanocrystals (NCs). These films were synthesized by phase separation due to annealing at 700 -1000°C from sputtered amorphous Mo–Si alloy. Transmission electron microscope images showed that the NCs were grown to diameters of∼10 nm in the films by annealing at 800°C. Raman scattering spectra showed lower shift of peak positions of Si transverse optical (TO) phonon due to the confinement effect and the tensile stress. The electrical resistivity of the films was 0.17- 9 Ωm at room temperature and showed a semiconducting temperature dependence at 20-400 K. Thermal conductivity of the film was reduced to 4.4 W/mK by enhancement of phonon scattering at NC interfaces, suggesting that the composite film is promising as a high-efficiency Si-based thermoelectric material.

Nanocomposite Bi2Te3 based alloys are attractive for their potentially high thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) around room temperature. The nano-scale structural features embedded in the matrix provide more scattering of phonons and can thus reduce the lattice thermal conductivity. To further take advantage of such nanocomposite structures, we focus on the development of nanocrystalline Bi(Sb)Te(Se) powders by high energy cryogenic mechanical alloying followed by an optimized hot pressing process. This approach is shown to successfully produce Bi(Sb)Te(Se) alloy powders with grain size averaging about 9 nm for n-type BiTe(Se) and about 16 nm for p-type Bi(Sb)Te respectively. This cryogenic process offers much less milling time and prevents thermally activated contamination or imperfections from being introduced during the milling process. The nanocrystalline powders are then compacted at optimized pressures and temperatures to achieve full density compactions and preserve the grain sizes effectively. The resulting nano-bulk materials have optimal Seebeck coefficients and are expected to have improved ZT. Thermoelectric properties and microstructure studies by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy will also be presented and discussed.

The temperature dependence of cross-plane lattice thermal conductivity for thin film IV-VI semiconductors grown by molecular beam epitaxy was measured. Samples consisting of PbSe/PbSrSe multiple quantum wells (MQWs) on PbSe/PbSnSe superlattices (SLs) were grown with variations in SL layer thickness and the number of SL pairs. Localized lattice temperatures within the MQW layers were extracted from analysis of continuous wave photoluminescence (PL) emission spectra at heat sink temperatures between 100 K and 250 K. These data, finite element analysis, and electrical characterization were used to determine cross-plane lattice thermal conductivity of two different SL materials. A SL material with three different PbSe/PbSnSe thicknesses (1.2/1.2, 1.8/1.8, and 2.4/2.4 nm) exhibited a fairly constant lattice thermal conductivity from 1.2 to 1.3 W/mK as the sample was cooled from 250 K to 100 K. Another SL material with five different PbSe/PbSnSe thicknesses (0.5/0.5, 1.0/1.0, 1.6/1.6, 2.1/2.1, and 2.6/2.6 nm) exhibited very low lattice thermal conductivities from 0.46 to 0.47 W/mK 250 K to 100 K. These results are consistent with reflection of low energy heat transporting acoustic phonons within the SL material.

Bismuth-Antimony alloys have been shown to have high ZT values below room temperature, especially for single crystals. For polycrystalline samples, impurity doping and magnetic field have proven to be powerful tools in the search for understanding and improving thermoelectric performance. Nanopolycrystalline Bi0.88Sb0.12 doped with 0.05, 0.5 and 3 % Ce were prepared by ball milling and dc hot pressing techniques. Electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, carrier concentration, mobility, and magnetization are measured in a temperature range of 5-350 K and in magnetic fields up to 9 Tesla. The effects of Ce doping on the thermoelectric properties of Bi0.88Sb0.12 in zero magnetic field are discussed.

Ultrafast time resolved transmission electron diffraction (TED) in a reflection geometry was used to study the cooling behavior of self-organized, well defined nanoscale germanium hut and dome clusters on Si(001). The clusters were heated in a pump-probe scheme by fs-laser pulses. The resulting transient temperature rise was then determined from the drop in diffraction intensity caused by the Debye-Waller effect. From a cooling time of τ =177 ps we estimated a strongly reduced heat transfer compared with homogeneous films of equivalent thickness.