Enhanced power factor of higher manganese silicide via melt spin synthesis method

Abstract

We report on the thermoelectric properties of the higher manganese silicide MnSi1.75 synthesized by means of a one-step non-equilibrium method. The ultrahigh cooling rate generated from the melt-spin technique is found to be effective in reducing second phases, which are inevitable during the traditional solid state diffusion processes. Aside from being detrimental to thermoelectric properties, second phases skew the revealing of the intrinsic properties of this class of materials, for example, the optimal level of carrier concentration. With this melt-spin sample, we are able to formulate a simple model based on a single parabolic band that can well describe the carrier concentration dependence of the Seebeck coefficient and power factor of the data reported in the literature. An optimal carrier concentration around 5 × 1020 cm−3 at 300 K is predicted according to this model. The phase-pure melt-spin sample shows the largest power factor at high temperature, resulting in the highest zT value among the three samples in this paper.