| AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Electronic Materials and Processing | Thursday Sessions |
| Session EM+MS-ThM |
| Session: | III-N Nitrides for Optoelectronic Applications |
| Presenter: | Nikolaus Dietz, Georgia State University |
| Authors: | B. Kucukgok, University of North Carolina at Charlotte N. Lu, University of North Carolina at Charlotte N. Dietz, Georgia State University I. Ferguson, Missouri University of Science and Technology |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Thermoelectric (TE) devices have gained widespread interest as a renewable energy source in the field of energy conservation and emission reduction due to their direct conversion of heat into electricity by Seebeck effect of TE materials. Additionally, TE devices have been used in wide variety of applications, due to their reliability, stability, and low-cost, such as automotive industry, spacecraft radioisotope power supply, and photovoltaic solar cells. Since TE device performance is directly related to material efficiency, material selection becomes essential. Recently, the interest of potential applications of III-nitride semiconductors in the TE field has been initiated due to their distinguished features including high-temperature operation, high mechanical strength, and large-band gap range and their promising TE figures of merit (ZT), mostly for materials based on AlGaN and InGaN alloys. Here, we demonstrate the room temperature thermoelectric properties of III-nitrides such as GaN and its alloys, grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The structural, optical, electrical, and thermal properties of the samples were examined by X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, van der Pauw hall-effect, and thermal gradient methods, respectively. The objectives of this paper are to understand the role of defects, carrier density n, and composition x on the TE properties of III-nitrides.