Berlin 2008 – scientific programme
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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 29: New materials
HL 29.1: Talk
Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 12:00–12:15, ER 164
Heusler compounds as thermoelectric materials — •Joachim Barth1, Benjamin Balke1, Fred Casper1, Gerhard H. Fecher1, Juergen Winterlik1, Claudia Felser1, Rosa Roberts2, Andre Shkabko2, and Anke Weidenkaff2 — 1Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg - University, 55099 Mainz — 2Empa - Materials Science and Technology, Ueberlandstrasse 129, CH-8600 Duebendorf
Thermoelectric materials have gathered a lot of interest in the recent years. They can be either used in power generating devices or in heating and cooling systems. Several materials show interesting properties; among them are the Heusler and Half-Heusler compounds. These materialclasses are of special interest because they are very diverse and can be easily tuned to the needs of applications. To illustrate the diversity and tunability of these materials several compounds and the creating process are presented.
The process of finding promising materials includes three steps. At first we use band structure calculations to identify promising compounds. In the second step we synthesize them by arcmelting, which is followed by annealing. During the final step we characterize them by measuring XRD, electrical and thermal conductivity and Seebeckcoefficient. The quality of the compounds as thermoelectric materials is determined by the Power Factor and the Figure of merit.