The potential of bulk black-phosphorus for thermoelectric applications has been experimentally studied. The Seebeck Coefficient (S) has been measured in the temperature range from 300 K to 385 K, finding a value of S = +335 +- 10 uV/K at room temperature (indicating a naturally occurring p-type conductivity). S increases with temperature, as expected for p-type semiconductors, which can be attributed to an increase of the charge carrier density. The electrical resistance drops up to a 40 % while heating in the studied temperature range. As a consequence, the power factor at 385 K is 2.7 times higher than that at room temperature. This work demonstrates the feasibility of black-phosphorus in thermoelectric applications, such as thermal energy scavenging, which typically require devices with high performance at temperatures above room temperature.
@article{arxiv.1411.6468,
title = {Thermoelectric power of bulk black-phosphorus},
author = {Eduardo Flores and Jose R. Ares and Andres Castellanos-Gomez and Mariam Barawi and Isabel J. Ferrer and Carlos Sánchez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.6468},
year = {2015}
}