Mechanical Milling Behavior and Characteristics of Bi2Te3 Thermoelectric Materials

In this paper, starting from the gas atomization powders, n-type Bi2Te3 thermoelectric alloys prepared via high energy ball milling and subsequently consolidated by hot extrusion. The effect of ball milling on the microstructure of Bi2Te3 alloys was studied. With increasing the milling time, from 3 min to 90 min, the particles were coarsening due to the agglomerated because of the high surface energy of the fine particles adhesive each other during the high energy ball milling. The preferential orientations of grains indicate that the extrusion process has the significant method to forcing the basal plane to orient preferentially in the extrusion direction were clearly observed by the TEM micrograph. The maximum electrical conductivity 6675.567 Omega(-1)m(-1) measured at 100 degrees C temperature owing to the increasing of carrier concentration due to the donor defect formation and contamination occurred during the high energy ball milling at longer milling time (90 min).