Rapid Alloying and Nanostructuring of Silicon–Germanium Powder Mixture by Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract

This work reports on rapid alloying and nano-structuring of Si80Ge20 alloy by spark plasma sintering (SPS). Elemental silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge) powders were ball milled for 10 h under optimized process parameters. The alloying and densification of Si80Ge20 powders were performed using SPS at temperature range of 900–1200 °C. X-ray diffraction and High resolution transmission electron microscope studies were done to characterize the powders and sintered SiGe alloy. Scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectroscopy were carried out to understand the surface morphology and elemental quantification of nanostructured SiGe alloy. The reaction kinetics at different SPS temperatures in Si80Ge20 alloying were reported. It was observed that the increase in SPS temperature up to 1200 °C simultaneously increased the Si(Ge) alloying kinetics and bulk density. Raman spectroscopy study confirmed the Si(Ge) alloying.