Thermoelectric properties of HPHT sintered In-doped Pb0.5Sn0.5Te

✍ Scribed by Yongkwan Dong; Abds-Sami Malik; Francis J. DiSalvo

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 408 KB
• Volume: 183
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4596
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jssc.2010.05.036

✦ Synopsis

The thermoelectric properties of Pb 0.5 Sn 0.5 Te doped with In at 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 Â 10 19 /cm 3 and sintered at a high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) of 4.0 GPa and 800 or 900 1C, respectively, have been studied. All samples show p-type semiconducting behavior with positive thermopower. We find that HPHT sintering of conventionally synthesized materials improves their thermoelectric properties. The highest power factor is obtained for In doping of 2.0 Â 10 19 /cm 3 with 13.5 mW/cm K 2 at 230 1C. The corresponding figure of merit is 1.43 Â 10 À 3 /K. This represents a twofold improvement in thermoelectric figure of merit, compared to the conventionally sintered materials reported in the literature. When exposed to 400 1C for 10 days, samples sintered at 900 1C exhibit more stable thermoelectric properties, while the properties of those sintered at 800 1C deteriorated. These results demonstrate that HPHT sintering is a viable and controllable way of tuning the thermoelectric properties of PbTe-based materials.