• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
• /
• 2018.06a
• /
• pp.52-52
• /
• 2018

Only approximately 30% of fossil fuel energy is used; therefore, it is desirable to utilize the huge amounts of waste energy. Thermoelectric (TE) materials that convert heat into electrical power are a promising energy technology. The TE materials can be formed either as thin films or as bulk semiconductors. Generally, thin-film TE materials have low energy conversion rates due to their thinness compared to that in bulk. However, an advantage of a thin-film TE material is that the efficiency can be smartly engineered by controlling the nanostructure and composition. Especially nanostructured TE thin films are useful for mitigating heating problems in highly integrated microelectronic devices by accurately controlling the temperature. Hence, there is a rising interest in thin-film TE devices. These devices have been extensively investigated. It is demonstrated that transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors (TAOS) can be excellent thermoelectric (TE) materials, since their thermal conductivity (${\kappa}$) through a randomly disordered structure is quite low, while their electrical conductivity and carrier mobility (${\mu}$) are high, compared to crystalline semiconductors through the first-principles calculations and the various measurements for the amorphous In-Zn-O (a-IZO) thin film. The calculated phonon dispersion in a-IZO shows non-linear phonon instability, which can prevent the transport of phonon. The a-IZO was measured to have poor ${\kappa}$ and high electrical conductivity compared to crystalline $In_2O_3:Sn$ (c-ITO). These properties show that the TAOS can be an excellent thin-film transparent TE material. It is suggested that the TAOS can be employed to mitigate the heating problem in the transparent display devices.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.98-103
• /
• 2013

$Mg_{3-x}Zn_xSb_2$ powders with x = 0-1.2 were fabricated by mechanical alloying in a planetary ball mill with a speed of 350 rpm for 24 hrs and then hot pressed under a pressure of 70 MPa at 773 K for 2 hrs. It was found that there were systematic shifts in the X-ray diffraction peaks of $Mg_3Sb_2$ (x = 0) toward a higher angle with increasing Zn for both the powder and the bulk sample and finally the phase of $Mg_{1.86}Zn_{1.14}Sb_2$ was formed at the Zn content of x = 1.2. The $Mg_{3-x}Zn_xSb_2$ compounds had nano-sized grains of 21-30 nm for the powder and 28-66 nm for the hot pressed specimens. The electrical conductivity of hot pressed $Mg_{3-x}Zn_xSb_2$ increased with increasing Zn content and temperature from 33 $Sm^{-1}$ for x = 0 to 13,026 $Sm^{-1}$ for x = 1.2 at 323 K. The samples for all the compositions from x = 0 to x = 1.2 had positive Seebeck coefficients, which decreased with increasing Zn content and temperature, which resulted from the increased charge carrier concentration. Most of the samples had relatively low thermal conductivities comparable to the high performance thermoelectric materials. The dimensionless figure of merit of $Mg_{3-x}Zn_xSb_2$ was directly proportional to the Zn content except for the compound with Zn = 1.2 at high temperature. The $Mg_{3-x}Zn_xSb_2$ compound with Zn = 0.8 had the largest value of ZT, 0.33 at 723 K.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.186-191
• /
• 2009

Thermoelectric power and resistivity are measured for the perovskite $LaNi_{1-x}Ti_xO_3$ ($x{\leq}0.5$) in the temperature range 77 K - 300 K. The measured thermoelectric power of $LaNi_{1-x}Ti_xO_3$ ($x{\leq}0.5$) increases linearly with temperature and is represented by A + BT. The x = 0.1 sample showed metallic behavior, the x = 0.3 showed metal and insulating transition around 150 K, and x = 0.5 showed insulating behavior the over the whole temperature range. The electrical resistivity of x = 0.1 shows linear temperature dependence over the whole temperature range and $T^2$ dependence. On the other hand, the electrical resistivity of x = 0.3 shows a linear relation between $ln{\rho}$ and $T^{-1/4}$ (variable range hopping mechanism) in the range of 77 K to 150 K. For x = 0.5, the temperature dependence of resistivity is characteristic of insulating materials; the resistivity data was fitted to an exponential law, such as ln(${\rho}/T$) and $T^{-1}$, which is usually attributed to a small polaron hopping mechanism. These experimental results are interpreted in terms of the spin polaron (x = 0.1) and variable range hopping (x = 0.3) or small polaron hopping (x = 0.5) of an almost localized $Ni^{3+}$ 3d polaron.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.126-127
• /
• 2007

Sn-filled and Fe-doped $CoSb_3$ skutterudites were synthesized by encapsulated induction melting. Single ${\delta}$-phase was successfully obtained by subsequent annealing and confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis. Temperature dependences of Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity were examined from 300 K to 700 K. The positive Seebeck coefficient confirmed the p-type conduction. Electrical resistivity increased with increasing temperature, which shows that the $Sn_zCo_3FeSb_{12}$ skutterudite is highly degenerate. Thermal conductivity was reduced by Sn-filling because the filler atoms acted as phonon scattering centers in the skutterudite lattice. Thermoelectric figure of merit was enhanced by Sn filling and its optimum filling content was considered to be z=0.3 in the $Sn_zCo_3FeSb_{12}$ system.

• Current Applied Physics
• /
• v.18 no.12
• /
• pp.1513-1522
• /
• 2018

Bismuth telluride ($Bi_2Te_3$) thin films were prepared with various electrolyte temperatures ($10^{\circ}C-70^{\circ}C$) and concentrations [$Bi(NO_3)_3$ and $TeO_2:1.25-5.0mM$] in this study. The surface morphologies differed significantly between the experiments in which these two electrodeposition conditions were separately adjusted even though the applied current density was in the same range in both cases. At higher electrolyte temperatures, a dendrite crystal structure appeared on the film surface. However, the surface morphology did not change significantly as the electrolyte concentration increased. The dendrite crystal structure formation in the former case may have been caused by the diffusion lengths of the ions increasing with increasing electrolyte temperature. In such a state, the reactive points primarily occur at the tops of spiked areas, leading to dendrite crystal structure formation. In addition, the in-plane thermoelectric properties of $Bi_2Te_3$ thin films were measured at approximately 300 K. The power factor decreased drastically as the electrolyte temperature increased because of the decrease in electrical conductivity due to the dendrite crystal structure. However, the power factor did not strongly depend on the electrolyte concentration. The highest power factor [$1.08{\mu}W/(cm{\cdot}K^2$)] was obtained at 3.75 mM. Therefore, to produce electrodeposited $Bi_2Te_3$ films with improved thermoelectric performances and relatively high deposition rates, the electrolyte temperature should be relatively low ($30^{\circ}C$) and the electrolyte concentration should be set at 3.75 mM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
• /
• 2006.04a
• /
• pp.33-34
• /
• 2006

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
• /
• 2004.04a
• /
• pp.53-54
• /
• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Ceranic Society Conference
• /
• 2003.04a
• /
• pp.127.2-127
• /
• 2003

• Proceedings of the Korean Ceranic Society Conference
• /
• 2000.10a
• /
• pp.58.2-58
• /
• 2000

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2005.05a
• /
• pp.27-27
• /
• 2005