Realizing High Thermoelectric Performance at Ambient Temperature by Ternary Alloying in Polycrystalline Si1-x-yGexSny Thin Films with Boron Ion Implantation

Ying Peng; Lei Miao; Jie Gao; Chengyan Liu; Masashi Kurosawa; Osamu Nakatsuka; Shigeaki Zaima

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50754-4

Realizing High Thermoelectric Performance at Ambient Temperature by Ternary Alloying in Polycrystalline Si_1-x-yGe_xSn_y Thin Films with Boron Ion Implantation

Sci Rep. 2019 Oct 4;9(1):14342. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50754-4.

Authors

Ying Peng^{1

2}, Lei Miao², Jie Gao², Chengyan Liu², Masashi Kurosawa^{3

4

5}, Osamu Nakatsuka^{6

7}, Shigeaki Zaima⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan.
² Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Material, School of Material Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, 541004, China.
³ Department of Materials Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan. kurosawa@nagoya-u.jp.
⁴ PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8, Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan. kurosawa@nagoya-u.jp.
⁵ Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan. kurosawa@nagoya-u.jp.
⁶ Department of Materials Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan. nakatsuka@nagoya-u.jp.
⁷ Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan. nakatsuka@nagoya-u.jp.
⁸ Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan.

Abstract

The interest in thermoelectrics (TE) for an electrical output power by converting any kind of heat has flourished in recent years, but questions about the efficiency at the ambient temperature and safety remain unanswered. With the possibility of integration in the technology of semiconductors based on silicon, highly harvested power density, abundant on earth, nontoxicity, and cost-efficiency, Si_1-x-yGe_xSn_y ternary alloy film has been investigated to highlight its efficiency through ion implantation and high-temperature rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process. Significant improvement of the ambient-temperature TE performance has been achieved in a boron-implanted Si_0.864Ge_0.108Sn_0.028 thin film after a short time RTA process at 1100 °C for 15 seconds, the power factor achieves to 11.3 μWcm^-1 K^-2 at room temperature. The introduction of Sn into Si_1-xGe_x dose not only significantly improve the conductivity of Si_1-xGe_x thermoelectric materials but also achieves a relatively high Seebeck coefficient at room temperature. This work manifests emerging opportunities for modulation Si integration thermoelectrics as wearable devices charger by body temperature.