Papers by Author: D. Michael Rowe

Abstract: The formation of PbTe intermetallic compound by mechanical alloying (MA) has been investigated. The elemental starting materials were 99.5% pure lead and tellurium, with a sieve size of 80 and 200 mesh, respectively. A SPEX 8000 shaker milling was used to perform the MA, using WC balls as milling media in a cylindrical hardened tool steel vial. X-ray diffraction analysis was performed with a profile-fitting program, to evaluate time evolution of the alloy formation. An exotermical reaction occurs on PbTe formation, with entalphy H= - 16.3 Kcal/mol. The *T value is confirmed by the heat exchange equation *Q = |*Hf | =* i (mici ) *T, where the summation comprises the mass and specific heat of vial, balls and powder material. For the standard milling conditions employed, the PbTe formation occurs at aproximately 90 seconds of milling, when using charge ratios between 3:1 and 7.5:1. However, for lower charge ratios (8:1 to 10:1), isolated reactions at the mixture occurs, but the amount of material is not enough to raise the temperature of adjacent regions, and the propagation of the reaction is avoided. There is therefore a minimum amount of powder (“critical mass”), and below this value the reaction will not be self-sustained.

Abstract: In general, semiconductor materials for thermoelectric generation prepared by vacuum metallurgy shows a relatively high value of figure-of-merit. However, differences in some properties of alloys elemental constituents can cause processing problems. Recently, Mechanical Alloying (MA) has been used to produce polycrystalline thermoelectric materials, such as (Bi,Sb)2 and (Te,Se)3(1). The industry is using this process since early 70’s to produce oxide dispersion strengthened alloys and those with widely different melting temperatures (2) In the present work, Si0.80Ge0.20 alloys were prepared via Mechanical Alloying (MA), using 99.9 % pure silicon and germanium powders, with a sieve size of 100 mesh. The MA has been performed, for several balls - to - powder ratio, in a SPEX 8000 vibratory high energy milling with tungsten carbide balls. Time for alloy formation was in a range from 3 to 9 hours, corresponding to charge ratio of 12:1 and 4:1, respectively. After two hours of processing time, the grinding temperature reached 80 0 C, and remained at this level until the end of the process. It was possible to follow the SiGe alloy formation by x-ray diffractometry, as the peak lines positions of elemental Si and Ge were continuously shifted, and end up to merge into a single broad peak. There was a convergence of the individual lattice parameters of Si and Ge to a single value of 5.470 A, measured within the limit of  0.005 A. For the Si0.80Ge0.20 system evaluated in this work, the alloying progress occurred continuously, and changed inversely with charge ratio.

Abstract: The deposition and characterization of n-type Bi2Te3 and p-type Sb2Te3 semiconductor films are reported. The films were deposited by thermal co-evaporation on a 25 µm thick polyimide (kapton) substrate. The co-evaporation method is inexpensive, simple, and reliable, when compared to other techniques that need longer time periods to prepare the starting material or require more complicated and expensive deposition equipment. Seebeck coefficients of -189 µVK-1 and +140 µVK-1 and electrical resistivities of 7.7 µ0m and 15.1 µ0m were measured at room temperature on n-type and p-type films, respectively. These values are better than those reported for films deposited by co-sputtering or electrochemical deposition, and are close to those reported for films deposited by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition or flash evaporation. Because of their high figures of merit, these films will be used for the fabrication of a micro-Peltier element, useful in temperature control and laser-cooling for telecommunications.