We report on the elaboration of germanium manganese nanostructured thin films and the measurement of their thermoelectric properties. We investigate the growth of Ge:Mn layers along with a thorough structural characterization of this materials at the nanoscale. The room temperature thermoelectric properties of these layers containing spherical inclusions are discussed regarding their potential as a model of "electron crystal phonon glass material". We show that the thermal conductivity can be decreased by a factor of 30, even if the electronic properties can be conserved as in the bulk. The thermoelectric performance ZT of such material is as high as 0.15 making them a promising thermoelectric p-type material for Ge related application.
@article{arxiv.1301.1319,
title = {Thermoelectric propertie of Ge based electron crystal phonon glass materials},
author = {Dimitri Tainoff and André Barski and Eric Prestat and Daniel Bourgault and Emmanuell Hadji and Yanqing Liu and Pascale Bayle-Guillemaud and Olivier Bourgeois},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.1319},
year = {2013}
}