The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 21, 2017
Filed:
Sep. 06, 2016
The United States of America, As Represented BY the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC (US);
Xiao Liu, Fairfax, VA (US);
Thomas H. Metcalf, Washington, DC (US);
Daniel R. Queen, Silver Spring, MD (US);
Battogtokh Jugdersuren, Arlington, VA (US);
Qi Wang, Littleton, CO (US);
William Nemeth, Wheat Ridge, CO (US);
The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A process for forming a doped nc-Si thin film thermoelectric material. A nc-Si thin film is slowly deposited on a substrate, either by hot-wire CVD (HWCVD) with a controlled H:SiHratio R=6-10 or by plasma-enhanced (PECVD) with a controlled R=80-100, followed by ion implantation of an n- or p-type dopant and a final annealing step to activate the implanted dopants and to remove amorphous regions. A doped nc-Si thin film thermoelectric material so formed has both a controllable grain size of from a few tens of nm to 3 nm and a controllable dopant distribution and thus can be configured to provide a thermoelectric material having predetermined desired thermal and/or electrical properties. A final annealing step is used to activate the dopants and remove any residual amorphous regions.