Thermoelectric Properties of an Individual Suspended Single-Crystalline Sb2Se3 Nanowire

Nanowires exhibit excellent thermoelectric performance, due to the stronger quantum confinement and phonon scattering effect compared to bulk materials. However, it is a challenge to accurately evaluate the thermoelectric performance of nanowires. In this paper, the thermoelectric properties of an individual suspended SbSenanowire have been characterized by comprehensive T-type method, including thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and figure of merit. The thermal conductivity increases from 0.57 W/(m·K) to 3.69 W/(m·K) with temperature increasing from 80 K to 320 K. The lattice vibration dominates the heat conduction process, and due to its flawless crystal structure, the thermal conductivity is not lower than the reported values of bulk SbSe. The electrical conductivity increases from 7.83 S/m to 688 S/m in the temperature range of 50 K–320 K, which is a great improvement compared with the corresponding bulk value. At 294 K, the Seebeck coefficient of the SbSenanowire is –1120 μV/K and the corresponding figure of merit is 0.064.