Interface-enhanced thermoelectric output power in CrN/SrTiO3-x heterostructure

• 作者: Xueying Wan Xiaowei Lu Lin Sun Mingyu Chen Na Ta Wei Liu Qi Chen Liwei Chen Jian He Peng Jiang Xinhe Bao
• 来源期刊: 能源化学
• 年，卷（期）: 2022,（1）
• 页码范围: 16-22
• 页数: 7页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Thermoelectric devices enable direct conversion between thermal and electrical energy.Recent studies have indicated that the thin film/substrate heterostructure is effective in achieving high thermoelectric performance via decoupling the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity otherwise adversely inter-dependent in homogenous bulk materials.However,the mechanism underlying the thin film/sub-strate heterostructure thermoelectricity remains unclear.In addition,the power output of the thin film/-substrate heterostructure is limited to the nanowatt scale to date,falling short of the practical application requirement.Here,we fabricated the CrN/SrTiO3-x heterostructures with high thermoelectric output power and outstanding thermal stability.By varying the CrN film thickness and the reduction degree of SrTiO3-x substrate,the optimized power output and the power density have respectively reached 276 μW and 108 mW/cm2 for the 30 nm CrN film on a highly reduced surface of SrTiO3-x under a tem-perature difference of 300 K.The performance enhancement is attributed to the CrN/SrTiO3-x heteroin-terface,corroborated by the band bending as revealed by the scanning Kelvin probe microscopy.These results will stimulate further research efforts towards interface thermoelectrics.