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Surface-Decorated Silicon Nanowires: A Route to High- Z T Thermoelectrics

2009; American Physical Society; Volume: 103; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.103.055502

1092-0145

Troels Markussen, Antti‐Pekka Jauho, Mads Brandbyge,

Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures

Based on atomistic calculations of electron and phonon transport, we propose to use surface-decorated silicon nanowires for thermoelectric applications. Two examples of surface decorations are studied to illustrate the underlying ideas: nanotrees and alkyl functionalized silicon nanowires. For both systems we find (i) that the phonon conductance is significantly reduced compared to the electronic conductance leading to high thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$, and (ii) for ultrathin wires, surface decoration leads to significantly better performance than surface disorder.