Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 70
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-50672-x

Regular Article

Review of thermoelectric characterization techniques suitable for SiGe multilayer structures^*

¹ CNR-IMM – Unità di Agrate Brianza, Laboratorio MDM, Via Olivetti 2, 20864 Agrate Brianza, Italy
² L-NESS, Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano – Polo Territoriale di Como, Via Anzani 42, 22100 Como, Italy
³ School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, UK
⁴ Institute of Semiconductor and Solid State Physics, Johannes Kepler University, Altenbergerstr. 69, 4020 Linz, Austria

^a e-mail: stefanocarlocecchi@gmail.com

Received: 30 September 2014
Received in final form: 19 January 2015
Published online: 23 March 2015

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials have great potential for a range of energy harvesting applications, while the thin film approach is promising for the realization of integrated thermoelectric micro-devices. Silicon-germanium heterostructures are interesting candidates for on-chip cooling or energy harvesting, guaranteeing reliable manufacturing and integrability with silicon technology. Material research is nowadays focused on the engineering of nanostructured materials with improved thermoelectric performances. Therefore, the development of efficient methods for the characterizazion of the thermoelectric properties at the micro- and nano-scale is fundamental. We report here microfabrication based methods for the in-plane and cross-plane thermoelectric characterization of silicon-germanium multilayer heterostructures monolithically integrated on silicon.