Growth and properties of multilayered skutterudite thin films

Author

Caylor, J.C. ; Stacy, A.M. ; Bloom, B. ; Gronsky, R. ; Sands, T. ; Fuller-Mora, W.W. ; Ehrlich, A. ; Song, D. ; Chen, G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Chem., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

Aug. 29 1999-Sept. 2 1999

Firstpage

656

Lastpage

661

Abstract

This paper reports the structure and thermoelectric properties of multilayered skutterudite thin films. In particular, the two skutterudite phases used were CoSb/sub 3/ and IrSb/sub 3/. The multilayers were constructed using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) from skutterudite targets containing excess antimony. The films are polycrystalline with small grains exhibiting columnar growth penetrating through the layers. The property measurements, while yielding absolute numbers that are inferior to bulk values, show a possible enhancement (relative to single alloy films) of the thermoelectric power factor for multilayers with a period near 25 nm. Thermal conductivity data for the multilayers show that they are higher than a single alloy film. However, the values are below that of bulk skutterudites and single films of CoSb/sub 3/ and IrSb/sub 3/.

Keywords

antimony alloys; cobalt alloys; iridium alloys; metallic superlattices; pulsed laser deposition; thermal conductivity; thermoelectric power; 25 nm; CoSb/sub 3/; IrSb/sub 3/; columnar growth; multilayered skutterudite thin films; pulsed laser deposition; structure; thermal conductivity; thermoelectric properties; Chemistry; Crystalline materials; Mechanical factors; Nonhomogeneous media; Pulsed laser deposition; Temperature; Thermal conductivity; Thermoelectric devices; Thermoelectricity; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermoelectrics, 1999. Eighteenth International Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

ISSN

1094-2734

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5451-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICT.1999.843473

Filename

843473