AVS 51st International Symposium
    Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session NS2-ThA

Paper NS2-ThA9
Thermoelectric Nanowire Arrays for Waste Heat Conversion

Thursday, November 18, 2004, 4:40 pm, Room 213D

Session: Nanowires II
Presenter: E. Menke, University of California at Irvine
Authors: E. Menke, University of California at Irvine
R.M. Penner, University of California at Irvine
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No longer relegated to specialized roles like powering satellites, thermoelectric materials are garnering interest for more mundane uses like solid-state refrigerators and collecting waste heat in automobiles. A number of research groups are currently working on a variety of methods to improve the efficiency of thermoelectric materials. Our attempts to create more efficient thermoelectric devices have focused on fabricating arrays of high aspect ratio nanowires of bismuth telluride, presently the best conventional thermoelectric material for room temperature applications. I will present our method for preparing bismuth telluride and doped bismuth telluride nanowires on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite via electrochemical step-edge decoration. This will be followed by the characterization of these nanowires by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and energy dispersive x-ray analysis. Finally, I will end by briefly discussing our attempts to measure the thermoelectric figure of merit for these nanowires.