Discipline: Physics
Subcategory: Materials Science
Session: 4
Andrew Howe - Norfolk State University
Co-Author(s): Mamadou T. Mbaye (Norfolk State University Center for Materials Research) Sangram Pradhan (Norfolk State University Center for Materials Research) Bo Xiao (Norfolk State University Center for Materials Research) Messaoud Bahoura (Norfolk State University Center for Materials Research)
As humanity becomes more dependent on its industrial complex, energy based on fossil fuels will become scarce. This scarcity will drive a need for either alternative forms of energy or greater efficiency for the current forms of energy production. One easy way to increase the efficiency of any conventional power plant is to convert some of its waste heat into electricity. Thermoelectricity can provide create solutions to this problem by turning waste heat directly into electricity without changing anything in the design of the power plant. The efficiency of this thermoelectric material is given by the quantity called ZT. One easy way to increase ZT of a thermoelectric material is to provide more boundaries thereby making it harder for heat to transfer through the material. In practice these boundaries are areas between layers and the most efficient thermoelectric are often multilayered superlattice structured materials that process a high electrical but low thermal conductivity. Here, we report on the fabrication of thin film thermoelectric materials based on 10Å / 50Å, and 20Å / 40Å, Bi2Te3 / WS2 superlattice layer structure. From there we report our figure of merit and draw our preliminary conclusions.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This work is supported by the NSF-CREST Grant number HRD 1547771 and NSF-CREST Grant number HRD 1036494.
Faculty Advisor: Messaoud Bahoura, mbahoura@nsu.edu
Role: I fabricated multiple devices. I worked with the profilometry and characterization of the films. Ensuring that the films had few defects and were mostly conformal.