A study of the impact of dislocations on the thermoelectric properties of quantum wells in the Si/SiGe materials system

Thermoelectric materials generate electricity from thermal energy using the Seebeck effect to generate a voltage and an electronic current from a temperature difference across the semiconductor. High thermoelectric efficiency ZT requires a semiconductor with high electronic conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Here, we investigate the effect of scattering from threading dislocations of edge character on the thermoelectric performance of individual n and p-channel SiGe multiple quantum well structures. Our detailed physical simulations indicate that while the thermal and electrical conductivities decrease with increasing dislocation scattering/density, the Seebeck coefficient actually increases with increasing threading dislocation density above 10(6) cm(-2) at room temperature, due to an increase in the entropy associated with each carrier. The collective result of these individual effects, is that the present Si-based quantum well designs can tolerate scattering by a threading dislocation density up to similar to 10(8) cm(-2), well within the capabilities of modern growth techniques, before significant reductions in ZT due to scattering from threading dislocations is observed. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3665127]