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Vandersande, Jan

Publications and source records attributed to Vandersande, Jan.

12 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1996

Skutterudite Compounds For Power Semiconductor Devices

New semiconducting materials with p-type carrier mobility values much higher than state-of-art semiconductors discovered. Nine compounds, antimonides CoSb(sub3), RhSb(sub3), IrSb(sub3), arsenides CoAs(sub3), RhAs(sub3), IrAs(sub3), and phosphides CoP(sub3), RhP(sub3) and IrP(sub3), exhibit same skutterudite crystallographic structure and form solid solutions of general composition Co(1-x-y)RH(x)Ir(y)P(1-w-z)As(w)Sb(z). Materials exhibit high hole mobilities, high doping levels, and high electronic figures of merit. Some compositions show great potential for application to thermoelectric devices.

Fleurial, Jean-Pierre↗
NASA NTRS1993

Optimization of Hot-Pressed n-Type SiGe/GaP and p-Type SiGe/B Thermoelectric Materials

A comprehensive experimental and theoretical work has been conducted in order to optimize the thermoelectric properties of Si_(80)Ge_(20) materials and reach the goal of a combined figure of merit value of 0.85x10^(-3) K^(-1) averaged over a 600-1000 C temperature range. Improvement for the n-type material has been obtained by determining the optimum amounts of gallium and phosphorus dopants necessary to achieve optimum carrier mobility and concentration. The emphasis is now on the consistent reproducibility of these results through understanding and control of the hot-pressing parameters relating microstructure and composition to the transport properties. The optimum doping level has now been firmly established for p-type materials, and work is concentrating on the reduction in thermal conductivity. BN ultra fine particles have been successfully incorporated into fully dense samples and have resulted in desired improvement of the figure of merit...

Fleurial, Jean-Pierre↗
NASA NTRS1992

Thermal Conductivity Of Natural Type IIa Diamond

Report describes application of flash diffusivity method to measure thermal conductivity of 8.04 x 8.84 x 2.35-mm specimen of natural, white, type-IIa diamond at temperatures between 500 and 1,250 K. Provides baseline for comparison to isotopically pure (12C) diamond. Results used as reference against which diamond films produced by chemical-vapor deposition at low pressures can be compared. High thermal conductivity of diamond exploited for wide variety of applications, and present results also used to estimate heat-conduction performances of diamond films in high-temperature applications.

Vandersande, Jan↗
NASA NTRS1992

Improved electrical properties of n-type SiGe alloys

The effect of changes in the carrier concentration and mobility for heavily doped n-type SiGe on the electrical power factor has been investigated. It has been shown that power factors of 37-40 microV/cm-K-squared can be achieved with carrier concentrations of 2.0 - 2.5 x 10 exp 20/cu cm and mobilities of 38-40 sq cm/V-sec. Many samples with suitable carrier concentration do not have high mobilities and some rationale for this behavior is presented. Initial results are presented on fabrication of n-type samples from ultrafine powders. The emphasis in this work is to achieve thermal conductivity reductions by adding inert particles to scatter midfrequency phonons.

Scoville, A. N.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Reduced thermal conductivity due to scattering centers in p-type SiGe alloys

Spark erosion was used to produce ultra-fine particles of SiGe thermoelectric material and boron nitride, an inert phonon-scattering material. A homogeneous powder was made by mixing the two powders. The mixture was hot pressed to produce a thermoelectric material with uniformity dispersed, ultra-fine, inert, phonon-scattering centers. It is shown that, in samples with inert boron nitride or silicon nitride, thermal conductivity of a SiGe alloy can be reduced by about 25 percent while maintaining the electrical properties of the samples. Annealing of all the samples at 1525 K caused grain growth to over a micron, eliminating the detrimental effect attributable to small grains. Only in the sample with boron nitride the thermal conductivity did remain well below that for standard p-type SiGe (about 25 percent), while the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient were very close to the values for standard p-type 80/20 SiGe.

Beaty, John S.↗
NASA NTRS1991

High figure-of-merit n-type SiGe/GaP alloys

Improvements to the figure-of-merit of n-type SiGe have been achieved via a systematic anneal study aimed at determining the optimal P:Ga ratio. Figures-of-merit of 0.85 to 0.90 x 10-3K-1 have been routinely and reproducibly achieved starting with an initial P:Ga ratio of 3:1. These samples have carrier concentrations in excess of 4.0 x 1020/cu cm, the highest reported for SiGe. This value has been shown to be too high, resulting in unfavorably low Seebeck coefficients. The optimal carrier concentration has been shown to be 1.5-3.0 x 1020/cu cm. Thus, further improvements will be achieved by reductions in the P and Ga concentrations.

Scoville, A. N.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Thermoelectric properties of hot pressed p-type SiGe alloys

This paper presents the results of measurements of electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, as well as Hall carrier concentration, and mobility, for hot pressed SiGe 80 at. pct Si-20 at. pct Ge (SiGe) thermoelectric materials containing 0.24-3.0 at. pct boron. The carrier concentration was varied by annealing and quenching at different high temperatures. Figure-of-merit, Z, was found to be 0.60 +/- 0.03 x 10 exp -3/K over a carrier concentration range from 1.8- 3.5 x 10 exp -20/cu cm. This result is very encouraging from a production standpoint, since the dopant concentration is not critical.

Bajgar, Clara↗
NASA NTRS1991

Thermoelectric properties of hot-pressed fine particulate powder SiGe alloys

A novel material system and its fabrication technique have been defined and applied to the production of SiGe thermoelectric material through the hot pressing of 50-100 A ultrafine particulates into 80/20 SiGe. Relative to conventionally processed SiGe, a reduction of thermal conductivity of up to 40 percent is achieved in conjunction with an enhancement of material figure-of-merit of the order of 10-15 percent.

Beaty, John S.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Experimental approaches for improving SiGe thermoelectric efficiency at JPL

Efforts to improve the thermoelectric efficiency of silicon-germanium alloys are discussed. These efforts are essentially focused on substantially enhancing carrier concentration levels and thus increasing the power factor values of n-type materials. With the help of thermodynamic phase diagram calculations, a combination of various crystal growth and dopant saturation techniques is used for this purpose. Bulk polycrystal growth of double-doped materials is achieved by zone leveling while a new method (the traveling heater method) for high-quality single-crystal growth of SiGe is being developed. Thin films of homogeneous single-crystalline multidoped Si80Ge20 have also been successfully grown from low-temperature melts to investigate combined dopant solid solubility variations. Very high carrier concentration levels were obtained by (P+As)-combined diffusion in zone-leveled and hot-pressed materials. The good overall understanding of doping mechanisms which has been achieved should enable optimization of the thermoelectric properties over this extended carrier concentration range. Reductions in thermal conductivity are being sought by introduction of very small phonon scattering centers (inert material) in the initial powders-precursors of Si-Ge alloys. This approach should benefit both n- and p-type materials.

Borshchevsky, Alex↗
NASA NTRS1987

Development of improved p-type silicon-germanium alloys

Annealing experiments in the temperature range 1100-1275 C have been performed on p-type Si(0.8)Ge(0.2) samples with BP, B(6.5)P, and GaSb material additives. Both electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient generally decrease for these samples as annealing temperature is increased, with thermoelectric power factor sometimes being improved by annealing.

Mclane, George↗
NASA NTRS1986

Properties of silicon-germanium thermoelectric alloys with additives

The paper reports the results of measurements (Seebeck and Hall coefficients, electrical resistivity, and thermal conductivity) on silicon-germanium (Si-20 at. pct Ge) alloy with boron phosphide, B(6.5)P) as an additive, prepared as described by McLane et al. (1986). The power factor (Seebeck coefficient squared divided by electrical resistivity) and the thermal conductivity of SeGe/B(6.5)P material were found to be lower than for the 'standard' SiGe (Si-22 at. pct Ge) material. However, no net improvement was achieved in the figure-of-merit of the sample tested. It is suggested that structural inhomogeneities, revealed by a SEM examination, might be responsible for this lack of improvement.

Mclane, George↗