Mechanical alloying and sintering of lead telluride

Lend telluride, appropriately doped, has promising good thermoelectric prop erties. It has often been utilised since the 1960s in thermogenerators, Con ventional solidification was used in this case. Now, for industrial applica tions, we must reduce the cost of fabrication, meanwhile thermoelectric pro perties must be enhanced. In this study, we develop thermoelectric material s for a new process, mechanical alloying, which permits us to obtain smalle r grain size powders. Moreover, we have succeeded in sintering these powder s. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.