A MODIFIED VAN DER PAUW SETUP FOR MEASURING THE RESISTIVITY AND THERMOPOWER OF THERMOELECTRIC MATERIALS OF VARYING THICKNESSES

Abstract

In the investigation of thermoelectric (TE) materials as a practical, and efficient, means of power generation/ refrigeration nearly ninety percent of the possible high-efficient binary compounds have been evaluated. But only a few proved to be useful such as Bi 2 Te 3 alloys, PbTe and SiGe to name the most important materials. Therefore, in order to expand the research of high-efficiency TE materials new compounds and methods of efficiency optimization must be explored. There currently exist a vast number of uninvestigated ternary and quaternary materials that could be potential high-efficiency thermoelectric materials. The device and methodology discussed herein deal with rapidly measuring both the electrical resistivity and the Seebeck coefficient of thermoelectric materials, at a set temperature of T ≈ 300 K. Using nontraditional resistivity measurements and rapid, room-temperature thermopower measurements, a reliable and time-efficient means of gauging the power factor (defined below) values of newly synthesized thermoelectric materials is achievable. Furthermore, the efficacy of the van der Pauw technique for measuring the resistivity of thermoelectric materials has been verified.