Thermostat for high temperature and transient characterization of thin film thermoelectric materials

Abstract

We have designed and fabricated a vacuum-insulated thermostat capable of measuring the thermoelectric properties of thin films from room temperature to 850 K. High speed Seebeck voltage transients are resolved to 200 ns with 63 dB dynamic range in order to directly measure thermoelectric device figure of merit. In-plane Seebeck coefficient probes measure voltage and temperature difference at identical locations with low parasitic contributions. In-plane electrical conductivity measurement is accomplished at high speed to avoid possible Seebeck voltage effect on van der Pauw measurements. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.