Wednesday, 3 October 2018: 14:30
Universal 16 (Expo Center)
In this talk, I will share our recent research effort on development of thermoelectric materials and devices as well as thermal interface materials by using the pulsed electroplating method. We systematically studied the effects of deposition parameters on the composition, microstructure, and thermoelectric properties of the electroplated Bi2Te3 thin films. Our results show that the thermoelectric figure of merit of the electroplated Bi2Te3 films can be enhanced by increasing the pulse off-to-on ratio, which is mainly due to the reduced thermal conductivity and the increased Seebeck coefficient. Based on the fundamental materials research, we further developed cross-plane micro-thermoelectric generators (TEG) based on the electroplated Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 micropillars. A power density of 9.2 mW/cm2 is achieved at a temperature difference of 52.5 K for a TEG with 127 thermoelectric pairs. Recently, we are developing thin thermal interface materials by combining pulsed electroplating with microfabrication processes. I will introduce the fabrication process of thermal interface materials and our preliminary results on thermal resistance measurements.