Self-doping enhancing thermoelectric properties of GeTe thin films

Abstract

The thermoelectric film has broad application potential in the self-power supply of miniature electrical equipment. In this work, GeTe thermoelectric films were prepared using physical vapor deposition combined with annealing processes. Benefitting from the high mobility enabled by the increased crystallinity and the optimized carrier concentration via Ge self-doping, the power factor of a GeTe thin film was significantly improved to 18 μW cm−1 K−2 (300 K), and the maximum one (28 μW cm−1 K−2) was achieved at 576 K. Furthermore, thermoelectric thin film devices assembled with high-performance GeTe films exhibited superior output performance at a temperature difference of 40 K. The maximum open circuit voltage reached 12.2 mV and the power density was 2.4 mW cm−2, indicating that GeTe thin films have broad application prospects in the field of self-power supply.

Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance in Flexible Sulfur-Alloyed Ag2Se Thin Films

“…The realization of the flexibility mainly relies on the support of flexible substrate and low dimension, such as the Ag 2 Se/Nylon composite film − prepared by vacuum filtration, Ag 2 Se/PEN film fabricated by screen printing, and Ag 2 Se/polyimide (PI) film , prepared by the selenization method. In addition, compared to the above strategies, physical vapor deposition (PVD) technology , seems to be a better preparation strategy that can reduce the influence of impurities and improve the crystallinity of thin films. Our previous work has shown that Ag 2 Se films deposited on PI substrates by vacuum thermal evaporation and magnetron sputtering have excellent thermoelectric performance and flexibility.…”