Preparation And Properties Of SnTe-In₂Te₃Thermoelectric Materials

Thermoelectric(TE) materials are environment-friendly materials which have attractedconsiderable attention due to their prosperous applications in thermoelectric coolingdevices and power generators. The investigation and exploitation of high-performance TEmaterials has become one of the most significant frontier subjects of internation concern,especially in the developed countries. The preparaion of nanoscaled and low dimensionedTE materials has shown a remarkable enhancement of thermoelectric properties byeffectively suppressing the thermal conductivity. It implies that amorphous states withstructural disordering would provide an alternative strategy for the development of novelthermoelectric materials with remarkable properties. This paper is focused on the glasstransition behaviors and the thermoelectric properties of narrow-band-gap Te-based alloysin order to explore new routes in preparing high-performance amorphous Te-based TEmaterials. Studies will start with component selection of alloys where the entropies offusion of Te-based compounds and eutectic systems are emphasized to explore theamorphous transition. And then we have successfully prepared amorphousnarrow-band-gap SnTe-In2Te3thermoelectrical materials by melting spinning (MS) withspark plasma sintering (SPS) technique.We have enhanced the MS technique and successfully prepared amorphousnarrow-band-gap Te-based alloys with partial amorphous or perfect amorphous.The meltspinning product were analyzed via X-ray diffraction and Differential ScanningCalorimetry. Microstructure of the melt spinning product was characterized with XRD.Amorphous was investigated with DSC.We have found the appropriate SPS processparameters and analyzed the relation beteen the components and low thermal conductivity.Amorphous bulk thermoelectric materials (SnTe)35(In2Te3)65were successfully prepared,which has a very low thermal conductivityκmin=0.173Wm-1k-1at423K.