Smart integration of silicon nanowire arrays in all-silicon thermoelectric micro-nanogenerators

Micro and nanotechnologies are called to play a key role in the fabrication of small and low cost sensors with excellent performance enabling new continuous monitoring scenarios and distributed intelligence paradigms (Internet of Things, Trillion Sensors). Harvesting devices providing energy autonom...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Fonseca, Luis, Santos, Jose Domingo, Roncaglia, Alberto, Narducci, Dario, Calaza, Carlos, Salleras, Marc, Donmez, Inci, Tarancon, Albert, Morata, Alex, Gadea, Gerard, Belsito, Luca, Zulian, Laura
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/416143
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/416143
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84979584134
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:bottom-up approach
silicon nanowires
silicon technologies
thermoelectricity
top-down approach
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Descripción
Sumario:Micro and nanotechnologies are called to play a key role in the fabrication of small and low cost sensors with excellent performance enabling new continuous monitoring scenarios and distributed intelligence paradigms (Internet of Things, Trillion Sensors). Harvesting devices providing energy autonomy to those large numbers of microsensors will be essential. In those scenarios where waste heat sources are present, thermoelectricity will be the obvious choice. However, miniaturization of state of the art thermoelectric modules is not easy with the current technologies used for their fabrication. Micro and nanotechnologies offer an interesting alternative considering that silicon in nanowire form is a material with a promising thermoelectric figure of merit. This paper presents two approaches for the integration of large numbers of silicon nanowires in a cost-effective and practical way using only micromachining and thin-film processes compatible with silicon technologies. Both approaches lead to automated physical and electrical integration of medium-high density stacked arrays of crystalline or polycrystalline silicon nanowires with arbitrary length (tens to hundreds microns) and diameters below 100 nm.