Preparation of Bismuth Telluride Films with High Thermoelectric Power Factor

Highly conductive n-type Bi₂Te₃ films on a flexible substrate were prepared via electrodeposition followed by a transfer process using an adhesive substrate. The growth of the Bi₂Te₃ crystals was precisely controlled by an electrochemical deposition potential (V_dep), which was critical to the preferred orientation of the crystal growth along the (110) direction and thus to the properties of a flexible thermoelectric generator (FTEG). A Bi₂Te₃ film prepared under V_dep of 0.02 V showed high electrical conductivity (691 S cm^-1) with a maximum power factor of 1473 μW m^-1 K^-2, which is the highest among the Bi₂Te₃ films prepared by the electrodeposition methods. As-prepared FTEG was bendable, showing only a small resistance change after 300 repeated bending cycles. Combined with the n-type Bi₂Te₃ FTEG, a prototype p-n-type flexible thermoelectric (pn-FTEG) was prepared using p-type poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene)s. The pn-FTEG (5-couples) generated an output voltage of 5 mV at δT = 12 K with high output power of 56 nW (or 105 nWg^-1). These results indicate that the FTEG can reproducibly work well in a bent state and has high application potential for harvesting thermal energy from curved sources such as human body temperature.