Thermoelectric properties of binary semiconducting intermetallic compounds Al2Ru and Ga2Ru synthesized by spark plasma sintering process

Abstract

The authors report the electrical and thermal transport properties of binary semiconducting intermetallic Al2Ru and Ga2Ru compounds from 373 to 973 K. We synthesized sintered pellets of Al2Ru and Ga2Ru by the spark plasma sintering (SPS) method, resulted in a removal of small amount of a secondary phase and of cracks. The maximum Seebeck coefficient of Al2Ru and Ga2Ru shows a large positive value of 200μV/K and 360μV/K, respectively. In particular, a large power factor ∼2.8mW/m-K2 was obtained at 773 K in Ga2Ru compound. The dimensionless figures of merit ZT of sintered Al2Ru and Ga2Ru samples monotonically increase with increasing temperature and reach a maximum value of 0.20 and 0.45 at about 873 K and 773 K, respectively © 2010 The Thermoelectrics Society of Japan.