Towards More Accurate Determination of the Thermoelectric Properties of Bi2Se3 Epifilms by Suspension via Nanomachining Techniques

Abstract

We report on the characterization of the thermoelectric properties of Bi2Se3 epifilms. MBE-grown Bi2Se3 films on GaAs (111) A are nanomachined with integrated Pt elements serving as local joule heaters, thermometers, and voltage probes. We suspended a 4 µm × 120 µm Bi2Se3 by nanomachining techniques. Specifically, we selectively etched GaAs buffer/substrate layers by citric acid solution followed by a critical point drying method. We found that the self-heating 3ω method is an appropriate technique for the accurate measurement of the thermal conductivity of suspended Bi2Se3. The measured thermoelectric properties of 200 nm thick Bi2Se3 at room temperature were κ=1.95 W/m K, S=−102.8 μV/K, σ = 75,581 S/m and the figure of merit was ZT=0.12. The study introduces a method to measure thermal conductivity accurately by suspending thin films.