Summer 2011 Intern Project- Eric Ling

THERMOELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF DOPED InGaAs

Eric Ling
Physics and Mathamatics
UC Santa Barbara

Mentor: Borzoyeh Shojaei
Faculty Advisor: Chris Pamlstrom
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

In recent history, thermeoelectrics have shown to be promising materials for energy conversion via wasted heat to electricity. One such material, indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), may possess a high electrical conductivity term in the thermoelectric figure of merit when doped with scandium and erbium. We have grown undoped , strain-free InGaAs and strained, scandium and erbium doped InGaAs films over InP substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. X-ray diffraction has been used to determine the strain in the grown films, and magnetotransport measurements have been used to determine carrier concentration and mobility. Our experimental results, in conjunction with thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient measurements, will be used to optimize the thermoelectric figure of merit for the scandium-erbium doped InGaAs material system.

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