Thermoelectric Properties of SiC-Nanocomposite n -Type Bi 2 (Te 0.90 Se 0.10 ) 3 Prepared by Mechanical Alloying and Microwave Sintering

n -type Bi 2 (Te 0.90 Se 0.10 ) 3 /(SiC) y (0 ≤ y ≤ 0.01) composites with nano-SiC were fabricated by mechanical alloying combined with microwave sintering. The microstructure and thermoelectric properties of Bi 2 (Te 0.90 Se 0.10 ) 3 /(SiC) y were studied systematically. The nano-SiC particles as the phonon scattering center uniformly distributed in the matrix, with little effect on the electric transport performance and significantly reducing the thermal conductivity of n -type Bi 2 (Te 0.90 Se 0.10 ) 3 /(SiC) y (0 ≤ y ≤ 0.01). The introduction of nano-SiC optimizes the thermoelectric performance, and the sample with SiC y = 0.0075 obtains the highest ZT ~0.94 at 323 K.