Thermoelectric properties and morphology of Si-Ge-Au amorphous thin films with superior performance at near room temperature

Author

Fukui, K. ; Nakamori, M. ; Okamoto, Y. ; Inoue, Y. ; Morimoto, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Nat. Defense Acad., Kanagawa, Japan

fYear

2005

fDate

19-23 June 2005

Firstpage

187

Lastpage

189

Abstract

In this paper, we report the recrystallization process of Si-Ge-Au amorphous thin film with extremely large thermoelectric power that was prepared in ultra high vacuum. We observed the morphology of samples by using FE-SEM and FE-TEM. We found that the power factor increased at near room temperature for high Au concentration samples. But after several annealing cycles, segregations were observed on high Au concentration samples. The diameter reached 30 μm at maximum on 300 nm thickness thin film. These segregations were two types. One type was Au segregation and the other was Si-Ge segregation.

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; annealing; germanium alloys; gold alloys; power factor; recrystallisation; scanning electron microscopy; segregation; semiconductor growth; semiconductor thin films; silicon alloys; thermoelectric power; transmission electron microscopy; 30 mum; 300 nm; Au concentration; FE-SEM; FE-TEM; Si-Ge-Au; Si-Ge-Au amorphous thin films; annealing; morphology; power factor; recrystallization; segregation; thermoelectric power; thermoelectric properties; ultra high vacuum; Amorphous materials; Annealing; Gold; Morphology; Reactive power; Scanning electron microscopy; Superlattices; Temperature; Thermoelectricity; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermoelectrics, 2005. ICT 2005. 24th International Conference on

ISSN

1094-2734

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9552-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICT.2005.1519915

Filename

1519915