Study on the thermoelectric properties of porous Bi-Te films deposited using thermal evaporation on AAO template

Abstract The application of thermoelectric films is limited to retain the temperature gradient. In this study, the Bi-Te films are deposited on the AAO template with a pore size of 100 nm using thermal evaporation. The results show that the conductive types of the Bi-Te film are tuned by source temperature. The power factor of the p-type porous film decreases 36% by comparing to that of the p-type nonporous film (1020 μW/mK2 at 250 °C). Meanwhile, the temperature difference in the porous device is maintained and is approximately 5.0 °C. Thus, the maximum output power is achieved in the porous device (about 25 pW), which is 5 times higher than that of the nonporous device. This provides a method to improve the conversion efficiency of thermoelectric film device by maintaining the temperature difference by using porous structure.