Effects of homogeneous irradiation of electron beam on crystal growth and thermoelectric properties of nanocrystalline bismuth selenium telluride thin films

摘要

The effects of homogeneous irradiation of electron beam (EB) on the crystal growth and thermoelectric properties of nanocrystalline bismuth selenium telluride thin films were investigated. The thin films were prepared using a flash evaporation method, after which EB irradiation was performed under N_2 at room temperature at an accelerated voltage of 0.17 MeV. SEM revealed that the untreated thin film was composed of a large quantity of rice-like nanostructures. With increasing the EB irradiation dose, a number of nanodots with diameters of less than 10 nm became visible on the surface of the rice-like nanostructures. The crystallinity and the crystal orientation were enhanced with increasing EB irradiation dose while the average crystal grain size remained almost the same size as that of the untreated thin film. In terms of thermoelectric properties, the mobility of the thin films was enhanced as the EB irradiation dose was increased while the carrier concentration was not greatly changed. As a result, both the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient were improved with increasing EB irradiation dose. Consequently, even though there is still room for further improvement, the power factor was enhanced around sevenfold (from 0.14 to 0.96 μW/cm/K~2) by the EB irradiation treatment.