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Microstructure and thermoelectric properties of Bi1.9Lu0.1Te3 compound

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Abstract

Effect of fabrication conditions on microstructure and thermoelectric properties of the Bi1.9Lu0.1Te3 compound was studied. Starting nanopowder with mean nanoparticle size of ~37 nm was synthesized by a microwave–solvothermal method. In order to prepare samples with various micro-grained structures, the synthesized nanopowder was compacted by two methods. The first method is cold isostatic pressing with further high-temperature annealing, while the second method is spark plasma sintering at various temperatures of process (653 and 683 K). It is found that mean grain size is equal to ~290, ~730 and ~1160 nm for cold isostatically pressed and spark plasma sintered at 653 and 683 K samples, respectively. The micro-grained sample with maximum mean grain size shows the best thermoelectric properties. This sample is structurally inhomogeneous and has the lowest thermal conductivity and the specific electrical resistivity. Maximum dimensionless figure of merit for this sample is equal to ~0.9 for temperature range of 450–500 K.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (No. 3.6586.2017/BY and 03.G25.31.0246).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Research Centre, Belgorod State University, Belgorod, Russian Federation, 308015

    Maxim Yaprintsev, Roman Lyubushkin, Oxana Soklakova & Oleg Ivanov

  2. Voronezh State Technical University, Voronezh, Russian Federation, 394026

    Oleg Ivanov

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  1. Maxim Yaprintsev
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  2. Roman Lyubushkin
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  3. Oxana Soklakova
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  4. Oleg Ivanov
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Correspondence to Oleg Ivanov.

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Yaprintsev, M., Lyubushkin, R., Soklakova, O. et al. Microstructure and thermoelectric properties of Bi1.9Lu0.1Te3 compound. Rare Met. 37, 642–649 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-017-0926-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-017-0926-5

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