The effect of Bi (semimetal) nanoinclusions in nanostructured Bi2Te3 matrices is investigated. Bismuth nanoparticles synthesized by a low temperature solvothermal method are incorporated into Bi2Te3 matrix phases, synthesized by planetary ball milling. High density pellets of the Bi nanoparticle/Bi2Te3 nanocomposites are created by hot pressing the powders at 200 °C and 100 MPa. The effect of different volume fractions (0–7%) of Bi semimetal nanoparticles on the Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and carrier concentration is reported. Our results show that the incorporation of semimetal nanoparticles results in a reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity in all the samples. A significant enhancement in power factor is observed for Bi nanoparticle volume fraction of 5% and 7%. We show that it is possible to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity and increase the power factor resulting in an increase in figure of merit by a factor of 2 (from ZT = 0.2 to 0.4). Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity as a function of carrier concentration data are consistent with the electron filtering effect, where low‐energy electrons are preferentially scattered by the barrier potentials set up at the semimetal nanoparticle/semiconductor interfaces.

The topologically protected surface states of three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators have the potential to be transformative for high-performance logic and memory devices by exploiting their specific properties such as spin-polarized current transport and defect tolerance due to suppressed backscattering. However, topological insulator based devices have been underwhelming to date primarily due to the presence of parasitic issues. An important example is the challenge of suppressing bulk conduction in BiSe and achieving Fermi levels ( E) that reside in between the bulk valence and conduction bands so that the topologically protected surface states dominate the transport. The overwhelming majority of the BiSe studies in the literature report strongly n-type materials with E in the bulk conduction band due to the presence of a high concentration of selenium vacancies. In contrast, here we report the growth of near-intrinsic BiSe with a minimal Se vacancy concentration providing a Fermi level near midgap with no extrinsic counter-doping required. We also demonstrate the crucial ability to tune E from below midgap into the upper half of the gap near the conduction band edge by controlling the Se vacancy concentration using post-growth anneals. Additionally, we demonstrate the ability to maintain this Fermi level control following the careful, low-temperature removal of a protective Se cap, which allows samples to be transported in air for device fabrication. Thus, we provide detailed guidance for E control that will finally enable researchers to fabricate high-performance devices that take advantage of transport through the topologically protected surface states of BiSe.

No abstract

Ballistic electron emission microscopy has been utilized to demonstrate differences in the interface electrostatics of tungsten-Si(001) Schottky diodes fabricated using two different deposition techniques: thermal evaporation using electron-beam heating and magnetron sputtering. A difference of 70 meV in the Schottky barrier heights is measured between the two techniques for both p- and n-type silicon even though the sum of n- and p-type Schottky barrier heights agrees with the band gap of silicon. Spatially resolved nanoscale maps of the Schottky barrier heights are uniform for the sputter film and are highly disordered for the e-beam film. Histograms of the barrier heights show a symmetric Gaussian like profile for the sputter film and a skewed lognormal distribution for e-beam film. A Monte-Carlo model is developed to simulate these histograms which give strong indication that localized elastic scattering is causing this skewing as forces the hot electrons to need a greater total energy to surmount the barrier. These differences are attributed to silicide formation from the unintentional substrate heating during the e-beam deposition, which is confirmed with transmission electron microscopy.

a b s t r a c tThe concept of nanocomposite/nanostructuring in thermoelectric materials has been proven to be an effective paradigm for optimizing the high thermoelectric performance primarily by reducing the thermal conductivity. In this work, we have studied the microstructure details of nanocomposites derived by incorporating a semi-metallic Bi nanoparticle phase in Bi 2 Te 3 matrix and its correlation mainly with the reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity. Incorporating Bi inclusion in Bi 2 Te 3 bulk thermoelectric material results in a substantial increase in the power factor and simultaneous reduction in the thermal conductivity. The main focus of this work is the correlation of the microstructure of the composite with the reduction in thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity of the matrix and nanocomposites was derived from the thermal diffusivity measurements performed from room temperature to 150 1C. Interestingly, significant reduction in total thermal conductivity of the nanocomposite was achieved as compared to that of the matrix. A detailed analysis of high-resolution transmission electron microscope images reveals that this reduction in the thermal conductivity can be ascribed to the enhanced phonon scattering by distinct microstructure features such as interfaces, grain boundaries, edge dislocations with dipoles, and strain field domains.

The ability to detect localized silicide formation at a buried metal semiconductor Schottky interface is demonstrated via nanoscale measurements of the electrostatic barrier. This is accomplished by mapping the Schottky barrier height of the Cr/Si(001) interface by ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM). Monte-Carlo modeling is employed to simulate the distributions of barrier heights that include scattering of the electrons that traverse the metal layer and a distribution of electrostatic barriers at the interface. The best agreement between the model and the data is achieved when specifying two barrier heights less than 60 meV from one another instead of a singular barrier. This provides strong evidence that localized silicide formation occurs that would be difficult to observe in averaged BEEM spectra or conventional current voltage measurements.

The carrier concentration and electronic transport properties in Bi 2-x Sb x Te 3 alloy can be tuned by varying the Bi to Sb ratio, for high thermoelectric figure of merit. The concentration of intrinsic antisite defects in these alloys is also known to change with Bi to Sb ratio. Here we report the thermoelectric figure of merit of Sn doped Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 alloy. Different atomic percentages of Sn was substituted at Bi/Sb site in Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 alloy, synthesized by planetary ball milling. The electrical conductivity decreases with increasing Sn doping but for higher Sn content the electrical conductivity increases compared to undoped alloy. The Seebeck coefficient changes in accordance to electrical conductivity, resulting in small decrease in power factor for highest Sn doping. The lattice thermal conductivity shows a systematic decrease, with increasing Sn concentration resulting in a significant thermal conductivity reduction. Hence an increase in thermoelectric figure of merit could be achieved for the highest Sn (3at%) doping in Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 alloy as compared to undoped alloy.

The energetic resolution of Schottky barrier visualization is determined by utilizing differences in interface band structures between the Au/Si(001) and Au/Si(111) non-epitaxial interfaces and parallel momentum conservation of the carriers. The visualization technique is based on ballistic electron emission microscopy and spectroscopy, where tens of thousands of spectra are collected on a grid and then fit to extract a spatially resolved map and histogram of the electrostatic barrier height. A resolution of 10 meV is determined from the minimal splitting and eventual merging of the histograms as the gold thickness decreases for the Au/Si(001) and Au/Si(111) samples. This splitting is below previously measured differences in barrier heights extracted from computational modeling of measured barrier height distributions from other interfaces.