Conductive scanning probe microscopy of nanostructured Bi 2Te 3

Tewfik Souier, Guang Li, Sergio Santos, Marco Stefancich, Matteo Chiesa*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In order to explain the unique thermoelectric properties of bulk nanocomposite p-type bismuth antimony telluride, its structural and electrical properties are investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy with a conductive probe (C-AFM). The material is observed to contain both nano- and micro-sized grains with sizes varying from 10 nm to 3 m. This unique structure promotes phonon scattering, thereby decreasing the thermal conductivity to below 1 W mK -1 at room temperature. Moreover, the C-AFM data show that the electrical conductivity of nanosized grains is higher than the bulk value and reaches 1600 S cm -1. This results in a moderate increment of the overall electrical conductivity, thereby increasing the figure of merit (ZT) up to 1.4 at 100 °C. In addition to demonstrating a powerful scanning probe microscopy (SPM) based investigation technique that requires minimal sample preparation, our findings contribute towards better understanding of the enhancement of thermoelectric properties of nanocomposite thermoelectric materials.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)600-606
Number of pages7
JournalNanoscale
Volume4
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 21 2012
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science

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