Laser co-ablation of bismuth antimony telluride and diamond-like carbon nanocomposites for enhanced thermoelectric performance

Abstract

A novel design of thermoelectric hetero-nanocomposite films comprising well-aligned oriented (Bi,Sb)(2)Te-3 (BST) nanocrystals and randomly dispersed diamond-like carbon (DLC) clusters has been realized for the first time using dual-beam pulsed laser co-deposition on SiO2 insulated Si substrates. The simultaneously deposited DLC additives were found not only to successfully prevent the thermally induced rapid growth of BST for having consistent nanostructures across the whole BST: DLC film, but also to effectively reduce the thermal transport as qualitatively evidenced by micro-Raman characterizations. The significantly enhanced Seebeck coefficients up to 550 mV K-1 and the corresponding power factor of similar to 46 mu W cm(-1) K-2 revealed comparable to or higher than previously reported values for BST or BSTbased nanocomposites, which evidently originated from the presence of multiple BST:DLC heterointerfaces as clarified in the Pisarenko plot.