Enhanced figure of merit of a porous thin film of bismuth antimony telluride

Abstract

A porous thin film of Bi0.4Te3Sb1.6 with an enhanced figure of merit of 1.8 at room temperature was fabricated by flash evaporation on an alumina substrate containing hexagonally arranged nanopores with an average diameter of 20 nm, separated by an average distance of 50 nm. The thermal conductivity was significantly reduced compared with standard Bi0.4Te3Sb1.6 films to 0.25 W/(m⋅K) with no major decrease in either the electrical conductivity (398 S/cm) or the Seebeck coefficient (198 μV/K). The reduction in thermal conductivity was rationalized using a model for the full distribution of the phonon mean free path in the film.