Uniform dispersion of SiC in Yb-filled skutterudite nanocomposites with high thermoelectric and mechanical performance. (15th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhou, Zhenxing; Li, Jianlin; Fan, Yuchi; Zhang, Qihao; Lu, Xiaofang; Fan, Shengjie; Kikuchi, Keiko; Nomura, Naoyuki; Kawasaki, Akira; Wang, Lianjun; Jiang, Wan
• Is Part Of: Scripta materialia. Number 162(2019)
• Page Start: 166
• Page End: 171
• Publication Date: 2019-03-15
• Subjects: Thermoelectric materials -- Nanocomposite -- Cryogenic grinding -- Spark plasma sintering -- Mechanical properties; Materials -- Periodicals; Metallurgy -- Periodicals; Metalen; Legeringen; Materiaalkunde; Metals, metalworking and machinery industries; Metals; Electronic journals; 620.11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scriptamat.2018.11.015
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1359-6462

Abstract

Abstract: Although filled skutterudites are very promising thermoelectric (TE) materials at intermediate temperature, most of the high-performance skutterudites reported are multiple-filled materials that tend to have poor stability and machinability. Here, we successfully fabricate single-filled skutterudite based composites with uniformly dispersed β-SiC nanoparticles via cryogenic grinding and spark plasma sintering. The nanocomposites show not only increased Seebeck coefficient owing to a possible energy filtering effect, but also reduced lattice thermal conductivity through enhanced phonon scattering. A maximum ZT value of 1.42 at 850 K with greatly improved mechanical properties is achieved, which is very attractive for the application in TE devices. Graphical abstract: Unlabelled Image