[19p-PA8-1~12] 9.4 Thermoelectric conversion

[19p-PA8-7] Thermoelectric properties of Mg₃Sb₂single crystals grown by self-flux method

〇Kunihiro Kihou¹, Haruno Kunioka^1,2, Hidesato Kuboyama^1,2, Masayuki Murata¹, Atsushi Yamamoto¹, Chul-Ho Lee¹ (1.AIST, 2.TUS)

Keywords:single crystal growth, Zintl phase, thermoelectric properties

Because waste heat recovery attracts great attention recently in environmental research area, attention to thermoelectric materials increases intensively. Several new thermoelectric materials with a figure-of-merit of ZT > 1 has been reported for the past decade. Mg₃Sb₂ is one of the promising thermoelectric materials that achieved ZT > 1.5 . To clarify the origin of its high performance, intrinsic properties must be examined using Mg₃Sb₂ single crystals.
Single crystal growth of Mg₃Sb₂ was already reported by S. Kim, et al.They grew single crystals with a slightly Mg rich composition of Mg : Sb = 3.5 : 2 in view of the high vapor pressure of Mg. In this work, we optimized the growth condition to obtain larger single crystals. Self-flux method was applied to grow single crystals with Mg or Sb as a flux. Thermoelectric properties of grown single crystals were, then, examined. Details of single crystal growth and results of measurements will be report in the conference.