Thickness and MeV Si ions bombardment effects on the thermoelectric properties of Ce3Sb10 thin films

The three single layer Ce₃Sb₁₀ thin films were grown on silicon dioxide and quartz (suprasil) substrates with thicknesses of 297, 269 and 70 nm using ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) technique. The high-energy cross plane Si ion bombardments with constant energy of 5 MeV have been performed with varying fluence from 1 × 10¹², 1 × 10¹³, 1 × 10¹⁴, 1 × 10¹⁵ ions/cm². The Si ions bombardment modified the thermoelectric properties of films as expected. The fluence and temperature dependence of cross plane thermoelectric parameters that are Seebeck coefficient, electrical and thermal conductivities were determined to evaluate the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) enabled us to determine the elemental composition of the deposited materials and layer thickness of each film.