[T21] Other Functional Materials

[15P-T21-07] Strain Analysis of Thermoelectric Materials Using High-Resolution Synchrotron X-ray Diffraction Data

M. Fujii¹, *H. Nakasawa¹, T. Shobu³, A. Tominaga³, H. Matsumoto¹, M. Matsuda¹, T. Shimada¹, V. Trivedi², M. Tachibana², N. Tsujii², T. Mori² (1.Proterial, Ltd., Japan, 2.National Institute for Materials Science, Jpan, 3.Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan)

キーワード：thermoelectric material, strain, synchrotron x-ray

A thermoelectric (TE) technology which converts heat gradients into electricity is attracted as one of the powerful energy generation technologies. n-type skutterudite compounds are promising candidates for TE generation because of its large zT (dimensionless figure-of-merit) more than 1.0 at 500℃. As the TE elements are strongly joined on ceramic substrate and placed in harsh temperature environments for electric power generation, the TE elements are fractured because of such higher pressure and temperature. Materials are generally broken when the internal strain exceeds the fracture threshold. Therefore, it is important to measure the fracture threshold of internal strain, however its value of the skutterudite never been revealed experimentally.In this research, pressure dependence of internal strain in n-type skutterudite was measured using high-resolution synchrotron x-ray diffraction at SPring-8. Analyzing XRD data shows that internal strain changes with applied pressure increasing and has been released after reached threshold.