Phase-Defined van der Waals Schottky Junctions with Significantly Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties

We demonstrate a van der Waals Schottky junction defined by crystalline phases of multilayer In₂Se₃. Besides ideal diode behaviors and the gate-tunable current rectification, the thermoelectric power is significantly enhanced in these junctions by more than three orders of magnitude compared with single-phase multilayer In₂Se₃, with the thermoelectric figure-of-merit approaching ∼1 at room temperature. Our results suggest that these significantly improved thermoelectric properties are not due to the 2D quantum confinement effects but instead are a consequence of the Schottky barrier at the junction interface, which leads to hot carrier transport and shifts the balance between thermally and field-driven currents. This "bulk" effect extends the advantages of van der Waals materials beyond the few-layer limit. Adopting such an approach of using energy barriers between van der Waals materials, where the interface states are minimal, is expected to enhance the thermoelectric performance in other 2D materials as well.