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Influence of porosity on the transport properties of Bi2Te3-based alloys by field-assisted sintering

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Abstract

Retention of a nanostructure in thermoelectric materials through rapid sintering (e.g., field-assisted sintering) is generally associated with leaving certain amounts of porosity due to short sintering times. In this study, the influence of porosity on the thermoelectric transport properties in Bi2Te3-based alloys was studied by changing the sintering pressure during spark plasma sintering. N-type Bi2Te3 and p-type (Bi0.2Sb0.8)2Te3 were sintered at 673 K using pressures from 50 to 300 MPa to obtain different levels of porosity. Electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, carrier concentrations, and Hall mobility were measured and characterized. The results show that increasing sintering pressure is effective in reducing porosity, which lowers electrical resistivity and increases the carrier concentrations. The transport properties were fitted to general effective medium equations and demonstrate that in p-type (Bi0.2Sb0.8)2Te3 sintered at high pressures, decreases in electrical resistivity and lattice thermal conductivity exceeded the Seebeck coefficient reduction, improving the thermoelectric figure of merit.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Sandia National Laboratories under contract no. 826008. Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lockheed-Martin Company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract no. DE-AC04-94AL85000. The authors would also like to acknowledge the use of the SPS-825S system which was supported by the Office of Naval Research through the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program under grant ONR-N00014-07-1-0745. Additionally, JKY would like to acknowledge the support of the Campus Executive Fellowship from Sandia National Laboratories.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Zhihui Zhang & Joshua K. Yee

  2. Materials Physics, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California, 94551-0969, USA

    Peter A. Sharma

  3. Energy Nanomaterials Sciences, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California, 94551-0969, USA

    Nancy Yang

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Enrique J. Lavernia

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  1. Zhihui Zhang
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Correspondence to Joshua K. Yee.

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Zhang, Z., Yee, J.K., Sharma, P.A. et al. Influence of porosity on the transport properties of Bi2Te3-based alloys by field-assisted sintering. Journal of Materials Research 28, 1853–1861 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2013.99

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