Electron-Transparent Thermoelectric Coolers Demonstrated with Nanoparticle and Condensation Thermometry.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32790350.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acsnano.0c03958.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
More efficient thermoelectric devices would revolutionize refrigeration and energy production, and low-dimensional thermoelectric materials are predicted to be more efficient than their bulk counterparts. But nanoscale thermoelectric devices generate thermal gradients on length scales that are too small to resolve with traditional thermometry methods. Here we fabricate, using single-crystal bismuth telluride (Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub>) and antimony/bismuth telluride (Sb<sub>2-<i>x</i></sub>Bi<sub><i>x</i></sub>Te<sub>3</sub>) flakes exfoliated from commercially available bulk materials, functional thermoelectric coolers (TECs) that are only 100 nm thick. These devices are the smallest TECs ever demonstrated by a factor of 10<sup>4</sup>. After depositing indium nanoparticles to serve as nanothermometers, we measure the heating and cooling produced by the devices with plasmon energy expansion thermometry (PEET), a high-spatial-resolution, transmission electron microscopy (TEM)-based thermometry technique, demonstrating a Δ<i>T</i> = -21 ± 4 K from room temperature. We also establish proof-of-concept for condensation thermometry, a quantitative temperature-change mapping technique with a spatial precision of ≲300 nm.