A thin film thermoelectric generator that consisted of 5 p/n pairs was fabricated with 1 μm-thick n-type In3Sb1Te2 and p-type Ge2Sb2Te5 deposited via radio frequency magnetron sputtering. First, 1 μm-thick GST and IST thin films were deposited at 250 oC and room temperature, respectively, via radio-frequency sputtering; these films were annealed from 250 to 450 oC via rapid thermal annealing. The optimal power factor was found at an annealing temperature of 400 oC for 10 min. To demonstrate thermoelectric generation, we measured the output voltage and estimated the maximum power of the n-IST/ p-GST generator by imposing a temperature difference between the hot and cold junctions. The maximum output voltage and the estimated maximum power of the 1 μm-thick n-IST/p-GST TE generators are approximately 17.1 mV and 5.1 nW at ΔT = 12K, respectively.

Using current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements, the electrical properties of Au and Cu Schottky contacts to n-Ge were comparatively investigated. Lower values of barrier height, ideality factor and series resistance were obtained for the Au contact as compared to the Cu contact. The values of capacitance showed strong dependence on the bias voltage and the frequency. The presence of an inversion layer at the interface might reduce the intercept voltage at the voltage axis, lowering the barrier height for C-V measurements, especially at lower frequencies. In addition, a higher interface state density was observed for the Au contact. The generation of sputter deposition-induced defects might occur more severely for the Au contact; these defects affected both the I-V and C-V characteristics.

The electrical properties of Au/n-type Ge Schottky contacts with different contact areas were investigated using current-voltage (I-V) measurements. Analyses of the reverse bias current characteristics showed that the Poole-Frenkel effect became strong with decreasing contact area. The contribution of the perimeter current density to the total current density was found to increase with increasing reverse bias voltage. Fitting of the forward bias I-V characteristics by considering various transport models revealed that the tunneling current is dominant in the low forward bias region. The contributions of both the thermionic emission (TE) and the generation-recombination (GR) currents to the total current were similar regardless of the contact area, indicating that these currents mainly flow through the bulk region. In contrast, the contribution of the tunneling current to the total current increased with decreasing contact area. The largest E00 value (related to tunneling probability) for the smallest contact area was associated with higher tunneling effect.