Fabrication of Thermoelectric Thin Films with High Dimensionless Figure of Merit Prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition

  • Misa Murakami, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
  • Mr Akio Hatamoto, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
  • Mr Akihiko Satoh, Meitec Corporation, Japan
  • Mr Tomoyuki Horiyama, Tokai Rika Corporation, Japan
  • Mr Shigeki Tsukui, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
  • For use of the waste heat around at room temperature (the range of a few tens of centigrade), we focused thermoelectric thin films of Bismuth Telluride compounds. Thermoelectric device has two main characteristics, Seebeck efficient and Peltier efficient, and can be used as power generation and refrigeration. Their advantages are long life, low environmental load, and large range of application temperature. Bi-Te is considered to be the best materials for the use in thermoelectric devices at near room temperature. If the thermoelectric Bi-Te thin films were made on the metal and alloy sheets, we were able to use the thermal energy at heating or cooling pipes of the automobile, house, and factory. Thermoelectric thin films of n- and p-type were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method (ULVAC, MB94-5006) shown in Fig.1. By irradiation focused Excimer laser lights (248nm) to the target, plume (which is the aggregate of molecules, atoms, ions, clusters, and so on) occurs and are deposited on the substrate. By PLD method, we can deposit thin films similar in composition to target. We fabricated Bi-Te thin films that had different film thicknesses by PLD method on metal substrates and succeeded in fabrication of Bi-Te thermoelectric thin films with low thermal conductivity and high Seebeck coefficient (Fig.2).