Simultaneous control of thermoelectric properties in p-type and n-type materials by electric double-layer gating : New design for thermoelectric device

We report novel design for thermoelectric device which can control thermoelectric properties of p-type and n-type materials simultaneously by electric double-layer gating. Here, p-type Cu2O and n-type ZnO were used as positive and negative electrodes of the electric double-layer capacitor structure. When the gate voltage was applied between two electrodes, the holes and electrons were accumulated on the surface of Cu2O and ZnO, respectively. The thermopower was measured by applying thermal gradient along the accumulated layer on the electrodes. We demonstrate here that the accumulated layers are worked as a p-n pair of the thermoelectric device.