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Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties of La-Doped ZrNiSn Half-Heusler Compound

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Abstract

The effect of La doping on ZrNiSn half-Heusler (HH) compound has been studied to explore the composition variation and structural modifications for improvement of its thermoelectric performance. A series of La x Zr1−x NiSn (x = 0, 0.005, 0.01, 0.015, 0.02, 0.03) alloys were prepared by induction melting combined with plasma-activated sintering. Structural analysis using x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) confirmed the resulting material to be a composite of HH, NiZr, and La3Sn4-type phases. The volume fraction for the phases other than HH ranged from 1.5% to 25% with increasing La content, as estimated by Rietveld analysis. The solubility of La in ZrNiSn is estimated to be 1.5%. Point defects may play a significant role in carrier and phonon transport. Interestingly, the thermoelectric transport properties exhibited a considerable increase in electrical conductivity σ with La doping and a significant drop in thermal conductivity κ, leading to a thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of 0.53 at 923 K, representing an improvement of about 37% compared with the undoped sample.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support from the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program) under Project 2013CB632502, the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51172174, 51402222), and the 111 Project of China (Grant No. B07040).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Rizwan Akram, Qiang Zhang, Dongwang Yang, Yun Zheng, Yonggao Yan, Xianli Su & Xinfeng Tang

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  1. Rizwan Akram
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  2. Qiang Zhang
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  3. Dongwang Yang
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  4. Yun Zheng
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  5. Yonggao Yan
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  6. Xianli Su
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  7. Xinfeng Tang
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Correspondence to Yonggao Yan or Xinfeng Tang.

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Akram, R., Zhang, Q., Yang, D. et al. Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties of La-Doped ZrNiSn Half-Heusler Compound. J. Electron. Mater. 44, 3563–3570 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-015-3882-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-015-3882-6

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