Ternary eutectic growth of nanostructured thermoelectric Ag-Pb-Te materials

Journal Article · Mon Jul 09 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4733661· OSTI ID:22092043

Wu, Hsin-jay; Chen, Sinn-wen ^[1]; Foo, Wei-jian ^[2]; Jeffrey Snyder, G. ^[3]

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1. Department of Chemical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, 101, Sec. 2, Kuang-Fu Rd., Hsin-Chu 300, Taiwan (China)
2. Engineering Science Programme, National University of Singapore, Blk EA, 06-10, 9 Engineering Drive, Singapore 117576 (Singapore)
3. Materials Science, California Institute of Technology, 1200 California Blvd., Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)

Nanostructured Ag-Pb-Te thermoelectric materials were fabricated by unidirectionally solidifying the ternary Ag-Pb-Te eutectic and near-eutectic alloys using the Bridgeman method. Specially, the Bridgman-grown eutectic alloy exhibited a partially aligned lamellar microstructure, which consisted of Ag{sub 5}Te{sub 3} and Te phases, with additional 200-600 nm size particles of PbTe. The self-assembled interfaces altered the thermal and electronic transport properties in the bulk Ag-Pb-Te eutectic alloy. Presumably due to phonon scattering from the nanoscale microstructure, a low thermal conductivity ({kappa} = 0.3 W/mK) was achieved of the eutectic alloy, leading to a zT peak of 0.41 at 400 K.

• OSTI ID: 22092043
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 2; Other Information: (c) 2012 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
EUTECTICS
INTERFACES
LEAD ALLOYS
LEAD TELLURIDES
MICROSTRUCTURE
NANOSTRUCTURES
PARTICLE SIZE
PHONONS
SCATTERING
SILVER ALLOYS
SOLIDIFICATION
TELLURIUM ALLOYS
TERNARY ALLOY SYSTEMS
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMOELECTRIC MATERIALS
THERMOELECTRICITY