Molecular Dynamics study of thermal conductivity in bismuth telluride thin films

Low-dimensional thermoelectric materials are believed to have higher energy transformation efficiency compared to bulk materials. In this work, the thermal conductivities in normal direction of bismuth telluride thin films have been studied using Non-equilibrium Molecular Dynamics (NEMD) with a two-body potential. We predict the thermal conductivity in films with a thickness range of 6-40nm at 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300 K. The results show that the thermal conductivities in normal direction in Bismuth Telluridethin films are much lower than those in bulk materials, and decrease with the increase of working temperature, and increase while the thickness of bismuth telluride thin film increases due to phonon scattering.