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Thermoelectric Properties of Hot-Pressed Ultra-Fine Particulate Sige Powder Alloys with Inert Additions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

John S. Beaty
Affiliation:
Thermo Electron Technologies Corporation, 85 First Avenue, Waltham, MA 02254-9046
Jonathan L Rolfe
Affiliation:
Thermo Electron Technologies Corporation, 85 First Avenue, Waltham, MA 02254-9046
Jan W. Vandersande
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109
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Abstract

The objective of the work reported here is to reduce the thermal conductivity of thermoelectric materials in order to improve their figureof- merit and conversion efficiency. Theory predicts that the addition of ultra-fine, inert, phonon-scattering centers to thermoelectric materials will reduce their thermal conductivity [1]. To investigate this prediction, ultra-fine particulates (20Å to 120Å) of silicon nitride have been added to boron doped, p-type, 80/20 SiGe. All of the SiGe samples produced from ultra-fine powder have lower thermal conductivities, than that for standard SiGe, but high temperature heat treatment increases the thermal conductivity back to the value for standard SiGe. However, the SiGe samples with silicon nitride, inert, phonon-scattering centers, retained the lower thermal conductivity after several heat treatments. A reduction of approximately 25% in thermal conductivity has been achieved in these samples.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1991

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References

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