Nanostructured Thermoelectric Films Synthesised by Spark Ablation and Their Oxidation Behaviour

Reducing the thermal conductivity of thermoelectric materials has been a field of intense research to improve the efficiency of thermoelectric devices. One approach is to create a nanostructured thermoelectric material that has a low thermal conductivity due to its high number of grain boundaries or voids, which scatter phonons. Here, we present a new method based on spark ablation nanoparticle generation to create nanostructured thermoelectric materials, demonstrated using Bi₂Te₃. The lowest achieved thermal conductivity was <0.1 W m-1 K-1 at room temperature with a mean nanoparticle size of 8±2 nm and a porosity of 44%. This is comparable to the best published nanostructured Bi₂Te₃ films. Oxidation is also shown to be a major issue for nanoporous materials such as the one here, illustrating the importance of immediate, air-tight packaging of such materials after synthesis and deposition.