Thermoelectrics


		When Silicon becomes a better thermal insulator than glass… Silicon has a high room temperature thermal conductivity, which is important for efficient heat dissipation in microelectronics. At the same time this circumstance is a road-block for thermoelectric applications (which exploit thermal/electric energy conversion). We have now demonstrated that introducing Ge nanostructures in single-crystalline Si leads to thermal conductivities which are lower than any other SiGe alloy, amorphous Si and even glass. The perception of "Nano-Si" opens great opportunities towards development of Si compatible on chip cooling or power generation devices. This work was carried out in collaboration with Université Bordeaux-CNRS, CEA-Grenoble, Fraunhofer-IPM, Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung and The University of California at Santa Cruz. G. Pernot et al., Nature Materials 9, 491 (2010) URL PDF