Thermoelectric Properties of In x Ge1−x Te Fabricated by High Pressure Sintering Method

In x Ge1−x Te (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15) alloys were fabricated by a high-pressure (6.0 GPa) sintering (HPS) method at 773 K. The products of synthesis were identified by x-ray diffraction and microstructures were examined by field-emission scanning electron microscope. Electric conductivities (σ) and seebeck coefficient (S) were measured in the temperature range of 300–723 K. The influence of the variation of In content on thermoelectric properties was studied. The experimental results show that the HPS samples consist of nanoparticles. The peak figure-of-merit for In0.1Ge0.9Te was 1.82 at 573 K.