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American Institute of Physics, Journal of Applied Physics, 11(110), p. 114508

DOI: 10.1063/1.3665127

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A study of the impact of dislocations on the thermoelectric properties of quantum wells in the Si/SiGe materials system

Journal article published in 2011 by Jeremy R. Watling, Douglas J. Paul ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Thermoelectric materials generate electricity from thermal energy using the Seebeck effect to generate a voltage and an electronic current from a temperature difference across the semiconductor. High thermoelectric efficiency ZT requires a semiconductor with high electronic conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Here, we investigate the effect of scattering from threading dislocations of edge character on the thermoelectric performance of individual n and p-channel SiGe multiple quantum well structures. Our detailed physical simulations indicate that while the thermal and electrical conductivities decrease with increasing dislocation scattering/density, the Seebeck coefficient actually increases with increasing threading dislocation density above 106 cm−2 at room temperature, due to an increase in the entropy associated with each carrier. The collective result of these individual effects, is that the present Si-based quantum well designs can tolerate scattering by a threading dislocation density up to ∼108 cm−2, well within the capabilities of modern growth techniques, before significant reductions in ZT due to scattering from threading dislocations is observed.