Power factor improvement at high temperatures has been a major research topic for the development of skutterudite thermoelectric materials. Here, we attempted to optimize the process parameters for manufacturing skutterudite materials, especially for p-type systems. We focused on the effect of aging time variation to maximize the hightemperature performance of the Ce-filled Fe₃CoSb₁₂ skutterudite system. The optimized aging time was concluded to be a key parameter for the formation of single-phase nanostructures in this p-type skutterudite system. The optimized condition was effective in reducing the bipolar effect at high temperature ranges by increasing the carrier concentration in the p-type system. To confirm the conclusions, the electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and power factor were measured. The results matched well with the microstructure and with those of an XRD analysis performed for the system.

In this study, we investigated plasmon effects to maximize the sterilization of dielectric discharge. We predicted the effect using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method as a function of electrode shape, size, and period. The structure of the electrode was designed with a thickness of 100 nm of silver nanoparticles on a glass substrate, and was varied according to the shape, size, and period of the electrode hole. Based on the results, it was confirmed that the effect of plasmons was independent of the shape of the electrode hole. It was thus confirmed that the plasmon effect depended only on the size and period of the holes. Further, the plasmon effect was affected by the size rather than period of the holes. Because the absorption of light by the metal varied according to the size of the hole, the plasmon effect generated by the absorption of light also varied. The best results were obtained when the radius and period of the electrode holes were 0.1 μm and 0.4 μm, respectively.

In this paper, high quality AlN layers were regrown on AlN nanopillar structure with SiO2-dots by HVPE. Surface morphology of AlN layer regrown exhibited flatter than a conventional AlN template. The laterally overgrown AlN regions would consist of a continuous well coalesced layer with lower dislocation density than in the template because of the dislocation blocking and dislocation bending effects. Moreover, result of Raman spectroscopy suggest that the AlN nanopillar structure with SiO2-dots relieves the strain in the AlN layer regrown by HVPE.