title: Geometric Shape Induced Small Change of Seebeck Coefficient in Bulky Metallic Wires.
abstract: In this paper, we report the results of slight changes in the thermopower of long W, Mo, Zn, Cu, brass, and Ti wires, that resulted from changes in the wire's diameter or cross-sectional area. The samples used in the tests had a round shape with a diameter that ranged from tens of micron to 2 mm, which was much larger than the corresponding mean free paths of these materials. Nevertheless, a small change in thermopower, at the order of 1-10 nV/K, was repeatedly observed when the wire diameter was changed, or when the cross-sectional area of the wire was altered by mechanical methods, such as grinding or splitting. The results are consistent with previous observations showing that the thermopower in metallic thin film stripes changes with their width, from 100 μm to as little as 70 nm, implying a universal, geometric-boundary-related size effect of thermopower in metal materials, that occurs at the nanometer scale and continuously decreases all the way to the millimeter scale. This effect could be applied in the manufacturing of high-temperature sensors with simple structures.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. pkloylee@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. suxiaohui211@163.com.
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. fyang1992@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. xiaoye.huo@tx.technion.ac.il.
authors.forename: Xiaoye
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. zgmin@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Gengmin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics & Chemistry of Nanodevices, and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. xusy@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Shengyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
keywords: bulky metallic wire; high-temperature sensor; mean free path; size effect; thermopower