Thermoelectric Properties of an Individual Suspended Single-Crystalline Sb 2 Se 3 Nanowire

Nanowires exhibit excellent thermoelectric performance, due to the stronger quantum confinement and phonon scattering effect compared to bulk materials. However, it is a challenge to accurately evaluate the thermoelectric performance of nanowires. In this paper, the thermoelectric properties of an individual suspended Sb 2 Se 3 nanowire have been characterized by comprehensive T-type method, including thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and figure of merit. The thermal conductivity increases from 0.57 W/(m·K) to 3.69 W/(m·K) with temperature increasing from 80 K to 320 K. The lattice vibration dominates the heat conduction process, and due to its flawless crystal structure, the thermal conductivity is not lower than the reported values of bulk Sb 2 Se 3 . The electrical conductivity increases from 7.83 S/m to 688 S/m in the temperature range of 50 K–320 K, which is a great improvement compared with the corresponding bulk value. At 294 K, the Seebeck coefficient of the Sb 2 Se 3 nanowire is –1120 µV/K and the corresponding figure of merit is 0.064.