High-performance Ag0.8Pb18+xSbTe20 thermoelectric bulk materials fabricated by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering

Abstract

Polycrystalline AgnPbmSbTem+2n thermoelectric materials, whose compositions can be described as Ag0.8Pb18+xSbTe20 were prepared using a combined process of mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. Electric properties of the sintered samples with different Pb contents were measured from room temperature to 700K. The maximum power factor of 1.766mW∕mK2 was obtained at 673K for the Ag0.8Pb22SbTe20 sample, which corresponds to a high dimensionless figure of merit, ZT=1.37. This best composition is different from that reported before.