Mechanical alloying and sintering of lead telluride

Lend telluride, appropriately doped, has promising good thermoelectric properties. It has often been utilised since the 1960s in thermogenerators, Conventional solidification was used in this case. Now, for industrial applications, we must reduce the cost of fabrication, meanwhile thermoelectric properties must be enhanced. In this study, we develop thermoelectric materials for a new process, mechanical alloying, which permits us to obtain smaller grain size powders. Moreover, we have succeeded in sintering these powders. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.