Thermoelectric Characterization of Direct Current Magnetron Co-Sputtering Zinc Antimonide Thin Films

Direct current magnetron co-sputtering was used to deposit zinc antimonide thin films on BK7 glass substrates at room-temperature. Then the films were annealed at 573 K to 673 K for 1 hour in Ar atmosphere. The results indicate that the Seebeck coefficient of the thin films increase from 30.5 μVK-1to 132.5 μVK-1 when the annealing temperature changed. The electrical conductivity of the thin films increases from 3.45×103 to 6.86×103 Sm-1 and the Power Factor is enhanced greatly from 0.03×10-4 to 0.99×10-4 Wm-1K-2 when the annealing temperature reached 598 K. X-ray diffraction result shows that the major diffraction peaks of the thin films match those of β phase Zn4Sb3 and high crystalline thin films are achieved after annealing.