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Thermoelectric Transport in a ZrN/ScN Superlattice

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  • Published: 19 January 2009
  • Volume 38, pages 960–963, (2009)
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Thermoelectric Transport in a ZrN/ScN Superlattice
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  • Mona Zebarjadi1,
  • Zhixi Bian1,
  • Rajeev Singh1,
  • Ali Shakouri1,
  • Robert Wortman2,
  • Vijay Rawat2 &
  • …
  • Tim Sands2 
  • 1042 Accesses

  • 66 Citations

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Abstract

Metal/semiconductor superlattices have the potential for a high thermoelectric figure of merit. The thermopower of these structures can be enhanced by controlling the barrier height using high-energy electron filtering. In addition, phonon scattering at interfaces can reduce the lattice contribution to the thermal conductivity. In this paper, we present theoretical and experimental studies of the thermoelectric transport in ZrN/ScN metal/semiconductor superlattices. Preliminary measurement results show an exponential increase in the cross-plane electrical conductivity with increasing temperature, which indicates the presence of the barrier. Fit of the Boltzmann transport-based model with the data indicates a barrier height of 280 meV. The cross-plane Seebeck coefficient of the sample is also measured by combining Seebeck voltage transient measurements with the thermal imaging technique. A Seebeck coefficient of 820 μV/K at room temperature is extracted, which is in good agreement with the simulation result of 800 μV/K. Theoretical calculations predict that the ZrN/ScN structure can exhibit a ZT of 1.5 at 1300 K assuming lateral momentum is conserved and that a ZT of 3 is achievable if the lateral momentum is not conserved.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by ONR MURI Thermionic Energy Conversion Center.

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the␣Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA

    Mona Zebarjadi, Zhixi Bian, Rajeev Singh & Ali Shakouri

  2. Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Robert Wortman, Vijay Rawat & Tim Sands

Authors
  1. Mona Zebarjadi
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  2. Zhixi Bian
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  3. Rajeev Singh
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  4. Ali Shakouri
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ali Shakouri.

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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Zebarjadi, M., Bian, Z., Singh, R. et al. Thermoelectric Transport in a ZrN/ScN Superlattice. J. Electron. Mater. 38, 960–963 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-008-0639-5

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  • Received: 08 July 2008

  • Accepted: 17 December 2008

  • Published: 19 January 2009

  • Issue Date: July 2009

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-008-0639-5

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Keywords

  • Thermoelectrics
  • metal/semiconductor interface
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