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Silicon Nanostructures for Thermoelectric Applications

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Nanoscale Thermoelectrics

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology ((LNNST,volume 16))

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Abstract

In this chapter, an overview on silicon nanostructures for thermoelectric applications is presented. After an introduction on the key concepts of thermoelectricity, we show that nanostructuring is one of the most promising solutions for making high efficient thermoelectric devices. In particular, we discuss the use of nanostructured silicon as a good thermoelectric material, due to its abundance, its nontoxicity, and its technological pervasiveness in the society, compared to other materials often proposed in the literature. Furthermore, a top-down process for the reliable fabrication of very complex and large area arrays of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) is shown and discussed. Finally, we show that these networks can be employed for the fabrication of high efficiency thermoelectric generators, and the high reliability and the high tolerance with respect to SiNW width dispersion are demonstrated by means of numerical simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Micro-BioRobotics @SSSA, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, I-56025, Pontedera (PI), Italy

    Massimo Totaro

  2. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, Via Caruso 16, I-56122, Pisa, Italy

    Massimo Totaro & Giovanni Pennelli

Authors
  1. Massimo Totaro
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  2. Giovanni Pennelli
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Correspondence to Massimo Totaro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center for Semiconductor Integrated Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China

    Xiaodong Wang

  2. Engineering Research Center for Semiconductor Integrated Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China

    Zhiming M. Wang

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Totaro, M., Pennelli, G. (2014). Silicon Nanostructures for Thermoelectric Applications. In: Wang, X., Wang, Z. (eds) Nanoscale Thermoelectrics. Lecture Notes in Nanoscale Science and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02012-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02012-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02011-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02012-9

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