2020 journal article

Experimental Realization of Heavily p-doped Half-Heusler CoVSn Compound

ENERGIES, 13(6).

By: S. Zaferani  n, A. Darebaghi*, S. Hong *, D. Vashaee n & R. Ghomashchi*

co-author countries: Australia πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί Korea (Republic of) πŸ‡°πŸ‡· United States of America πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
author keywords: half-Heusler; CoVSn; thermoelectric; heterogeneous structure
Source: Web Of Science
Added: April 27, 2020

Hypothetical half-Heusler (HH) ternary alloy of CoVSn has already been computationally investigated for possible spintronics and thermoelectric applications. We report the experimental realization of this compound and the characterizations of its thermoelectric properties. The material was synthesized by a solid-state reaction of the stoichiometric amounts of the elements via powder metallurgy (30 h mechanical milling and annealing at 900 Β°C for 20 h) and spark plasma sintering (SPS). The temperature-dependent ternary thermodynamic phase diagram of Co-V-Sn was further calculated. The phase diagram and detailed analysis of the synthesized material revealed the formation of the non-stoichiometry HH CoVSn, mixed with the binary intermetallic phases of SnV3, Co2Sn, and Co3V. The combination of X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and thermoelectric transport properties confirmed the formation of a multi-phase compound. The analysis revealed the predicted thermoelectric features (zT = 0.53) of the highly doped CoVSn to be compromised by the formation of intermetallic phases (zT β‰ˆ 0.007) during synthesis. The additional phases changed the properties from p- to overall n-type thermoelectric characteristics.