Thermoelectric properties and micro-structure characteristics of nano-sized CoSb3 thin films prefabricating by co-sputtering.

Skutterudite CoSb 3 material exhibits excellent thermoelectric properties for thermoelectric application. In this work, CoSb 3 thin films were fabricated by direct current magnetron co-sputtering. The composition of thin films was controlled by regulating the deposition power of both Co and Sb. Then the as-deposited Sb-excess sample was chosen to process post-annealing. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, together with Raman analysis, demonstrate that the annealed samples have well-crystallized and nano-sized skutterudite CoSb 3 structure. Hall measurement shows that specimens are P-type semiconductor. Both of the increasing of Seebeck coefficient and electric conductivity can be obtained when the samples annealed at appropriate temperature, indicating that thermally can improve its thermoelectric properties due to well-crystallized and nano-sized structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]