Thermoelectric properties of polysilicon inverse opals

Nanostructured single-crystal silicon exhibits a remarkable increase in the gure of merit for thermoelectric energy conversion. Here we theoretically and experimentally(partial) investigate a similar enhancement for polycrystalline silicon structured as an inverse opal. An inverse opal provides nanoscale grains and a thin- lm like geometry to scatter phonons preferentially over electrons. Using solutions to the Boltzmann transport equation for electrons and phonons, we show that the gure of merit at 300 K is fteen times that of bulk single-crystal silicon. Our models predict that grain boundaries are more e ective than surfaces in enhancing the figure of merit. We provide insight into this e ect and show that preserving a grain size smaller than the shell thickness of the inverse opal increases the gure of merit by as much as 50% when the ratio between the two features is a third. At 600 K, the figure of merit is as high as 0.6 for a shell thickness of 10 nm. We also measured the thermal conductivity of such nanostructures, and a more accurate thermal transport model is provided based on the experimental results