Elastic constants determined by nanoindentation for p-type thermoelectric half-Heusler

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the elastic properties of the p-type thermoelectric half-Heusler material, Hf0.44Zr0.44Ti 0.12CoSb0.8Sn0.2, using nanoindentation. Large grain-sized polycrystalline specimens were fabricated for these measurements, providing sufficient indentation targets within single grains. Electron Backscatter Diffraction methods indexed the target grains for the correlation needed for our elastic analysis of individual single crystals for this cubic thermoelectric material. Elastic properties, including the Zener ratio and the Poisson ratio, obtained from the elasticity tensor are also reported. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.