Thermoelectric-thick films were fabricated by using a screen printing process of n and p-type bismuth-telluride-based pastes. The screen-printed thick films have approximately 30 in thickness and show rough surfaces yielding an empty gap between an electrode and the thick film. The gap might result in an increase of an electrical resistivity of the fabricated thick-film-type thermoelectric module. In this study, we suggest a conductive metal coating onto the surfaces of the screen-printed paste in order to reduce the contact resistance in the module. As a result, the electrical resistivity of the thermoelectric module having a gold coating layer was significantly reduced up to 30% compared to that of a module without any metal coating. This result indicates that an introduction of conductive metal layers is effective to decrease the contact resistivity of a thick-film-typed thermoelectric module processed by screen printing.

Thermoelectric thick film was fabricated by screen printing process with using p-type Bi-Te-Sb powders. The powder was synthesized by melting, milling and sintering process and hydrogen reduced to enhance the thermoelectric property. The thick film of Bi-Te-Sb powder was fabricated by screen printing method and baked at the optimized conditions. The thermal conductivity, the electrical resistivity and Seeback coefficient of thick film were measured and the thermoelectric performance was analyzed in terms of film characteristics and its microstructure. Finally, the feasibility of thermoelectric thick film into micro cooling device on CPU chip was discussed in this study.