Microfabricated Testbench for High Throughput Measurement of Thermal and Thermoelectric Properties of Low-Dimensional Materials

We have developed a microfabricated testbench to measure the electrical, thermal, and thermoelectric properties of low-dimensional materials. In this unique design, a number of platform tips (test benches) are gathered in the central area of the chip for increased probability of positioning a bottom-up synthesized single nanomaterial structure across two platform tips when such materials are drop cast from a solution. Each platform has an embedded heater to heat the platform tip and a thermocouple to accurately measure its temperature. Electrically isolated from the thermocouple and heater structure, a top layer platinum on each platform is used to electrically connect to the low-dimensional material. Electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and ZT of GaAs/MnAs core/shell nanowires were successfully measured using testbench in the temperature range of 25 to 300 K.