Thermal Conductivity of Nano-Porous Bismuth Antimony Telluride

Bismuth antimony telluride (Bi0.4Te3.0Sb1.6) nano-porous thin films have been prepared and measured their thermal conductivities. The thin films exhibit an average grain size of 50 nm and random crystal orientation. The cross-plane thermal conductivity is measured by a differential 3ω method at temperature range from 100 to 300 K, and the determined thermal conductivities are from 0.09 to 0.18 W/(m·K). As compared with bulk alloys at the same atomic composition, the nano-porous thin films exhibit an eightfold reduction in the thermal conductivity. For more detail analysis, the reduction of the thermal conductivity is examined by a simplified phonon gas model on a single crystal of bulk Bi2Te3. The analytical model fairly agreed with the experimental results, and thus we consider that the thermal conductivity is reduced by the strong phonon scattering at the nano-pores.