About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Alloys and Compounds for Thermoelectric and Solar Cell Applications XIV
|
| Presentation Title |
Thermoelectric Properties of Silicon-Germanium Fabricated via Additive Manufacturing and Spark Plasma Sintering |
| Author(s) |
Luke Hansen, Trevor Aguirre, Hugo Bouteiller, Hsin Wang, Brad Johnson |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Luke Hansen |
| Abstract Scope |
Silicon germanium (SiGe) remains one of the highest performing, reliable, high-temperature thermoelectric materials for power generation in remote, light-deficient environments. However, thermoelectric materials have low conversion efficiencies, so efforts to improve the power efficiency of SiGe are of continuing interest. One strategy for increasing the performance of thermoelectric materials is to optimize the geometry of the thermoelectric module legs. This approach has not been applied to the SiGe material system. Conventional SiGe manufacturing techniques are limited in the geometries they can produce, and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques like laser powder bed fusion encounter cracking due to rapid cooling rates. An alternative low-thermal AM method that has not been applied to SiGe is binder jetting additive manufacturing (BJAM) followed by spark plasma sintering (SPS) for densification. This study investigates the preparation of SiGe powder suitable for AM and evaluates the subsequent BJAM and SPS steps. The resulting materials were characterized in terms of thermal conductivity, electrical resistivity, and Seebeck coefficient, alongside x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Additive Manufacturing, Characterization, Powder Materials |