Geometry dependence of thin-film transverse thermoelectric voltages

Abstract

We have measured the transverse voltage from slant-angle-deposited metal films due to laser illumination as a function of film geometry. For a fixed laser spot size, the voltage is found to vary inversely with film width d for d small compared to contact separation a. For d/a ≥∼1 the voltage approaches a constant. The experimental results are in good agreement with the open-circuit voltage from a finite-current dipole and consistent with the thermoelectric model previously proposed. Useful design parameters for transverse thermoelectric optical detectors are implied by the data.