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(Bi,Sb)2Te3-PbTe chalcogenide alloys: Impact of the cooling rate and sintering parameters on the microstructures and thermoelectric performances

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 September 2011

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Abstract

(Bi,Sb)2Te3 + 4 mol%PbTe was quenched in water and on a rotating copper wheel (melt spinning). It was found that PbTe was immiscible in (Bi,Sb)2Te3 when the material is quenched in water and that the thermoelectric figure of merit increases by annealing. Natural nanostructures (nns) were found in melt-spun (Bi,Sb)2Te3, whereas they were hard to detect in (Bi,Sb)2Te3 alloyed with PbTe. There is a correlation between the orientation of the strain field and the nns. Within the grains of melt-spun (Bi,Sb)2Te3 alloyed with PbTe, the chemical composition was homogeneous. An enrichment of Pb was found at the grain boundaries. Quenched (Bi,Sb)2Te3 alloyed with 0.3 wt%PbTe have been spark plasma sintered (SPS). After optimization, the Seebeck coefficients of the melt-spun SPS (MS-SPS) materials were larger than for materials quenched in water and sintered (QW-SPS) materials. In addition, the mobility increases with the carrier concentration in MS-SPS materials, whereas it decreases in QW-SPS materials.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors acknowledge gratefully the synthesis of the PbTe by BASF (Germany) and the preparation of the quenched materials by the Institut Jean Lamour—UMR 7198 CNRS (France).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Technique, D–79110, Freiburg, Germany

    Alexandre Jacquot, Martin Jägle & Harald Böttner

  2. Institute of Complex Materials, IFW Dresden, D–01069, Dresden, Germany

    Thomas Jürgen & Thomas Gemming

  3. Institute for Solid State Research, IFW Dresden, D–01069, Dresden, Germany

    Joachim Schumann

  4. Fraunhofer-Institut für Fertigungstechnik und Angewandte Materialforschung IFAM, Institutsteil Dresden, 01277, Dresden, Germany

    Jürgen Schmidt

  5. Fachhochschule Düsseldorf, Forschung und Transfer Präsidium, D-40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Dirk Ebling

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  1. Alexandre Jacquot
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Correspondence to Alexandre Jacquot.

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Jacquot, A., Jürgen, T., Schumann, J. et al. (Bi,Sb)2Te3-PbTe chalcogenide alloys: Impact of the cooling rate and sintering parameters on the microstructures and thermoelectric performances. Journal of Materials Research 26, 1773–1784 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.78

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