Thermoelectric properties of Al–Pd–Re quasicrystal sintered by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS): effect of improvement of microstructure

Abstract

Abstract We report the thermoelectric properties of poly-grain Al–Pd–Re icosahedral quasicrystals and discuss an effect of improvement of their microstructure. The improvement of microstructure by using Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) method resulted into a large increase of the electrical conductivity but less increase of the thermal conductivity. The relative density dramatically increased up to more than 90% by SPS. On the other hand, the microstructure itself does not have critical influence on the Seebeck coefficient, which is found to be strongly correlated with e/a (sample’s compositions). Consequently, the dimensionless figure of merit (ZT) increased three times from 0.05 to 0.15.