Effect of nano-SiC dispersion on thermoelectric properties of Bi2Te3 polycrystals.pdfVIP

phys. stat. sol. (a) 203, No. 15, 3768–3773 (2006) / DOI 10.1002/pssa.200622011 Effect of nano-SiC dispersion on thermoelectric properties of Bi Te polycrystals 2 3 Jing-Feng Li* and Jing Liu State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R. China Received 9 January 2006, revised 8 July 2006, accepted 11 July 2006 Published online 12 September 2006 PACS 68.37.Hk, 72.20.Pa, 72.80.Jc, 72.80.Tm, 81.20.Ev Nano-SiC dispersed Bi Te was synthesized by mechanical alloying (MA) followed by spark plasma sin- 2 3 tering (SPS). The effects of SiC dispersion on the thermoelectric properties of the SPS-sintered Bi Te al- 2 3 loys were investigated. The results revealed that SiC dispersion in the Bi Te matrix increased the absolute 2 3 value of Seebeck coefficient. Although the electrical resistance was increased somewhat, Bi2Te3 with 0.1 wt% SiC showed a higher power factor than Bi Te without SiC. Because the dispersion of SiC nano- 2 3 particles reduced the thermal conductivity at the same time, 0.1 wt% (~0.24 vol% SiC) addition of SiC nano-particles increased the figure of merit of Bi Te by 18%. 2 3 ©