naa a22 4500 510802192 CHVBK 20180411083400.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180411e20130701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11664-013-2500-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11664-013-2500-8 Microwave Sintering of Bi2Te3- and PbTe-Based Alloys: Structure and Thermoelectric Properties [Elektronische Daten] [J. Arreguin-Zavala, D. Vasilevskiy, S. Turenne, R. Masut] Microwave sintering is well known as an expeditious process in applications involving ceramics and biomaterials. For powders in the nanometer range, rapid microwave heating could reduce material exposure to elevated temperatures, thus preserving nanostructures in the resulting materials. To investigate the potential of this technique for thermoelectric (TE) materials, we have prepared samples of bismuth-telluride- and lead-telluride-based alloys from powders, for both materials, having sizes of partially agglomerated particles distributed from 0.15μm to 7μm. Sintering of the cold-pressed powders was carried out in a microwave furnace for 900s at temperatures in the range of 583K to 623K for bismuth telluride and 793K to 813K for lead telluride specimens. For optimized sintering times and temperatures, the samples obtained showed relative densities of almost 95%. Scanning electron microscopy shows some residual porosity and a reduction of grain size, up to a factor of 5 for PbTe, compared with optimized hot-extruded specimens. For bismuth telluride samples, the TE performance in the range of 300K to 460K is poor, which is attributed to the arbitrary texture obtained from cold pressing of a highly anisotropic alloy prior to its sintering. In contrast, PbTe exhibits isotropic properties, hence deficiency of texturing is not expected to have a negative impact on its TE properties. Harman measurements show a value of ZT=0.42 at 617K for PbTe p-type sintered samples, which is comparable to hot-extruded alloys from similar powders. The present work demonstrates that microwave sintering is a promising alternative to other powder consolidation techniques for polycrystalline materials exhibiting isotropic TE properties. TMS, 2013 Microwave sintering nationallicence thermoelectric nationallicence nanostructure nationallicence lead telluride nationallicence bismuth telluride nationallicence Arreguin-Zavala J. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut Vasilevskiy D. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut Turenne S. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut Masut R. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut Journal of Electronic Materials Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 42/7(2013-07-01), 1992-1998 0361-5235 42:7<1992 2013 42 11664 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-013-2500-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-013-2500-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Arreguin-Zavala J. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Vasilevskiy D. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Turenne S. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Masut R. École Polytechnique de MontrÉal, C.P. 6079, Succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3A7, Montréal, QC, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of Electronic Materials Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 42/7(2013-07-01), 1992-1998 0361-5235 42:7<1992 2013 42 11664 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer