Thermoelectric properties of individual electrodeposited bismuth telluride nanowires

For an electrodeposited bismuth telluride (BixTe1-x) nanowire from one batch with x found to be about 0.46, the Seebeck coefficient (S) was measured to be 15%-60% larger than the bulk values at temperature 300 K. For four other nanowires from a different batch with x approximate to 0.54, S was much smaller than the bulk values. The electrical conductivity of the nanowires showed unusually weak temperature dependence and the values at 300 K were close to the bulk values. Below 300 K, phonon-boundary scattering dominated phonon-phonon Umklapp scattering in the nanowires, reducing the lattice thermal conductivity. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.