T. Tokiai et al., IMPROVEMENT IN THERMOELECTRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF N-TYPE IRON DISILICIDE BY LOCAL COMPOSITION MODIFICATION, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 78(4), 1995, pp. 1089-1092
High thermoelectric figure of merit semiconducting ceramics of n-type
iron disilicide with modified local compositions have been developed.
Sintering and annealing of the composite powder composed of iron disil
icide and precipitated cobalt (II) hydroxide resulted in the dissoluti
on of excess Co and oxygen into the iron disilicide phase. Excess Co s
egregated to the grain boundary region, while interstitially incorpora
ted oxygen was distributed homogeneously in the microstructure, The ma
ximum figure of merit achieved was 5.2 x 10(-4)/K at 673 K.