Abstract Scope |
The continuous development of thermoelectric materials in the past decades led to the improvement of the dimensionless figure of merit and ultimately the overall device efficiency. However, synthesis and manufacturing of electronic materials in general, and thermoelectric materials particularly, requires delicate attention to attain the planned electronic and thermal properties. Furthermore, most of the conventional synthesis techniques, such as the hot pressing, limit the shape of the synthesized material; restricting them from being used in wide range of applications, such as wearable devices. The literature of 3D printing of thermoelectric materials, so far, is limited to binary materials ( Bi2Te3,PbTe,..). We are here showing the case for 3D printing of the half-Heusler alloy Nb1-xCoSb, in which we tackle the problems of secondary phases formation, porosity control and the relation of all that to the transport properties. This should bridge the gap towards printing of other ternary and quaternary thermoelectric systems |