Al-Si multilayers: A synthetic material with large thermoelectric anisotropy

A synthetic material with large thermoelectric anisotropy has been prepared from a metal-semiconductor multilayer structure. By an alloying process, a multilayer stack A-B-A..., where A and B are pure aluminum and n-silicon, is produced with a thermoelectric anisotropy DeltaS=S-parallel to-S(perpendicular to)congruent to1.5 mV/K, where S-parallel to and S-perpendicular to are the absolute Seebeck coefficients along and perpendicular to the layers, respectively. The use of this synthetic material for light sensing applications is demonstrated. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.