Zinc Antimonide Thin Film Based Flexible Thermoelectric Module

Zinc-antimonide is an encouraging alternative thermoelectric material to bismuth telluride based material for medium temperature range applications. In this work two fabrication concepts are proposed to build flexible modules using P-type zinc-antimony thin film and constantan straps, where the constantan was used as flexible electrical interconnect and N-type thermoelectric element. Nano-silver paste was applied as the bonding material and adhesive substance to tolerate a higher range of temperatures. The thin film specimen consisted of a 600 nm thin layer of zinc-antimonide deposited by magnetron co-sputtering on a 350 µm thick glass substrate. The proposed device configurations generate peak power of 3.5 μW and 13.5 μW at hot side temperatures of 250 °C and 330 °C, respectively.