Thermoelectric Properties of Indium-Selenium Nanocomposites Prepared by Mechanical Alloying and Spark Plasma Sintering

摘要

Indium-selenium-based compounds have received much attention as thermoelectric materials since a high thermoelectric figure of merit of 1.48 at 705 K was observed in In_(4)Se_(2.35). In this study, four different compositions of indium-selenium compounds, In_(2)Se_(3), InSe, In_(4)Se_(3), and In_(4)Se_(2.35), were prepared by mechanical alloying followed by spark plasma sintering. Their thermoelectric properties such as electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity were measured in the temperature range of 300 K to 673 K. All the In-Se compounds comprised nanoscaled structures and exhibited n-type conductivity with Seebeck coefficients ranging from -159 (mu)V K~(-1) to -568 (mu)V K~(-1) at room temperature.