Full text: Download
A study was conducted to show that a highly efficient thermoelectric material can be designed by using a superlattice approach, in which the delicate balance between carrier density and thermopower is controlled by fractional doping of the 2D carriers. The carrier concentration in the LSTO (band insulator SrTiO3) layer by incorporating different concentrations of La 3+ ions within the layer. Fractional σ-doping method was used to fabricate SLs. To measure the transport properties of the SLs, a direct Ohmic contact was made with indium to the metallic 2D LSTO layers in the van der Pauw geometry using ultrasonic soldering. Temperature-dependent S was measured by conventional steady-state method using a cryogenic refrigerator. S clearly increases in 2D compared to 3D, and one can achieve much larger PF values with 2D superlattices. The results demonstrated indicate that modifying the dimension of carrier conduction provides a way for tuning the thermoelectric properties of oxide materials beyond what the bulk counterpart can perform.