Thermoelectric measurement of multi-walled carbon nanotube bundles by using nano-probes

We report here a method for measurement of thermoelectric power of quasi-one dimensional nano-materials with a simple platform, where individual nanomaterial is assembled with nano-probes in a scanning electron microscope. This approach allows repeated manipulation and thermoelectric measurement of the same loaded nanosample with adjustable number of individual nanotubes or nanowires. It also allows assembly of multiple samples on one measurement stage. For multi-walled carbon nanotube bundles, we have observed a weak trend that, when the number of individual tubes in a bundle varies from ten millions to around a hundred thousand, the thermoelectric power almost remains at around 10 microV/K. When the tube number in the bundle is further reduced, the up-limit of the thermoelectric power gradually increases to a value near 20 microV/K.