Investigation of the Electrical Contact to the Thermoelectric Legs Fabricated by Screen-printing Method

Abstract

The screen-printing method is one of the promising and cheap methods for creating flexible thermoelectric generators. However, thermoelectric legs fabricated by this way have a number of disadvantages. One of the problems is connected with the necessity to reduce resistance of the electrical contact. This work investigates methods of forming contact systems for thermoelectric legs fabricated by screen-printing of the suspensions on the basis of Bi2Te2.8Se0.2 (n-type) and Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 (p-type) thermoelectric materials (TEM). To obtain electrical contacts, either wires were inserted during the fabrication of the legs, or electrochemical deposition was used. The electrophysical properties of thermoelectric legs with different electrical contacts were investigated. The effects of annealing on the properties of thermoelectric legs and electrical contacts were investigated.