Journal article

Publication year: 2018

Pages: 6007-6015

Journal: Journal of Electronic Materials

Volume number: 47

Issue number: 10

ISSN: 0361-5235

eISSN: 1543-186X

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6487-z

Publisher: Electron Devices Society

Abstract: 
We report on the synthesis of Bi1-xSbx alloys and the investigation of the relationship between their structural and thermoelectric properties. In order to produce a compound that will work efficiently even above room temperature, Bi1-xSbx alloys were chosen, as they are known to be the best suited n-type thermoelectric materials in the low-temperature regime (200 K). Using a top-down method, we produced nanostructured Bi1-xSbx powders by ball-milling in the whole composition range of 0 < x < 1.0. Nanostructuring of Bi1-xSbx alloys increases the band gap and thus results in an enlargement of the semiconducting composition region (0 <= x <= 0.5) compared to its bulk counterpart (0.07 <= x <= 0.22). The enhancement of the band gap strongly affects the transport properties of the alloys, i.e. the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient. Moreover, nanostructuring reduces the thermal conductivity through the implementation of grain boundaries as phonon-scattering centers, leading to a significant enhancement of the thermoelectric properties. The highest figure-of-merit observed in this study is 0.25 which was found for Bi0.87Sb0.13 at 280 K.

Harvard Citation style: Guenes, E., Landschreiber, B., Homm, G., Wiegand, C., Tomes, P., Will, C., et al. (2018) Structure and Thermoelectric Properties of Nanostructured Bi_1-xSb_x Alloys Synthesized by Mechanical Alloying, Journal of Electronic Materials, 47(10), pp. 6007-6015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6487-z

APA Citation style: Guenes, E., Landschreiber, B., Homm, G., Wiegand, C., Tomes, P., Will, C., Elm, M., Paschen, S., Klar, P., Schlecht, S., & Wickleder, M. (2018). Structure and Thermoelectric Properties of Nanostructured Bi_1-xSb_x Alloys Synthesized by Mechanical Alloying. Journal of Electronic Materials. 47(10), 6007-6015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6487-z