Thermoelectric behaviour of p- and n- type Ti-Ni-Sn half Heusler alloy variants and their amorphous equivalents

Abstract

ABSTRACTTi-Ni-Sn type half-Heusler alloys which have the versatility to be either p- or n-type depending on the type of substitution, have been synthesized and investigated in the present work. The added advantage of doping them with multiple elements is that they will be amenable to bulk amorphous phase formation. The hole doped alloys were predominantly single phase with a cubic structure, while the electron doped alloys were found to have minor additional phases. All the alloys exhibit extremely weak metallic-like or degenerate semiconductor transport behaviour in the temperature range 20 K to 1000 K. The resistivity of p-type alloys exhibits semi-metallic-to-semiconducting transition at ∼ 500 K while the n-type alloys exhibit a weak metallic-like behaviour in the complete temperature range. The Seebeck coefficient has strong temperature dependence with a maximum of 45 μV K−1 in the temperature range 600-700 K in the p-type alloys. The n-type alloys however exhibit a linear variation of the Seebeck coefficient with temperature. The total thermal conductivity of the alloys increases with increasing temperature without any peak at low temperatures indicating significant disorder induced scattering. The p-type alloys have the lowest thermal conductivity compared to the n-type alloys. These alloys become amorphous after pulsed laser deposition except one alloy which exhibits compensated transport behaviour.