Thermoelectric materials have attracted much attention due to the current interest in energy conversion and recent advancements in nano-engineering. A simple approach to synthesize BiTe and Bi₂Te₃ micro/nanowires was developed by combining solution chemistry reactions and catalyst-free vapor–solid growth. A pathway to transform the as-grown BiTe nanostructures into Bi₂Te₃ can be identified through the Bi–Te phase diagram. Structural characterization of these products was identified using standard microscopy practices. Meanwhile, thermoelectric properties of individual Bi–Te compound micro/nanowires were determined by the suspended microdevice technique. This approach provides an applicable route to synthesize advanced high performance thermoelectric materials in quantities and can be used for a wide range of low-dimensional structures.

In this article, we report the synthesis of single-crystalline nickel silicide nanowires (NWs) via chemical vapor deposition method using NiCl₂·6H₂O as a single-source precursor. Various morphologies of δ-Ni₂Si NWs were successfully acquired by controlling the growth conditions. The growth mechanism of the δ-Ni₂Si NWs was thoroughly discussed and identified with microscopy studies. Field emission measurements show a low turn-on field (4.12 V/μm), and magnetic property measurements show a classic ferromagnetic characteristic, which demonstrates promising potential applications for field emitters, magnetic storage, and biological cell separation.

Waste heat scavenging and IC hot spot cooling have been important topics of investigation for many decades. In this study, a novel sub-millimeter silicide/Si nanowires/Ag paste thermoelectric device is fabricated and its thermoelectric properties from 25 to 200 °C are studied. Polyimide packaging between the nanowires was used to enhance the mechanical strength of the device. The figure of merit of n-type and p-type device reached ~0.25 and 0.21 at 200 °C, respectively, demonstrating 5 times enhancement on the ZT value compared with Si. Our experimental results prove that this method provides a cost-effective approach to fabricate thermoelectric nanodevices for future thermoelectric applications without traditional powder milling and sintering processes.

Ultra-thin epitaxial NiSi ₂ was formed, and its structure was examined by electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. Compared with previous reports, the measured resistivity of the epitaxial NiSi ₂ was unprecedentedly low, reaching 7 μ Ω cm in the experimental results and up to 14.93 μ Ω cm after modification. The reliability, which was investigated under different temperatures and current densities to understand its electronic characteristics, was 1.5 times better than that of the conventional polycrystalline counterpart. Black’s equation and the measured mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) were used to obtain the reliability characteristics of epitaxial and poly-NiSi ₂ . Confidence intervals at 95% for each MTTF confirmed the single failure mode. The electromigration phenomenon was observed to be the failure mechanism. Our results provide evidence that epitaxial NiSi ₂ is a promising contact material for future electronics.