Abstract
The solubility of Yb in was reported to be 0.19 in bulk skutterudites made by melting and slow cooling method. Surprisingly we increased close to 0.5 by a special sample preparation method: ball mill and hot press. We show that a higher Yb concentration not only increases the power factor due to a higher electron concentration but also reduces the thermal conductivity because of stronger phonon scattering. In this way, we have achieved a dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of about 1.2 at in .
- Received 18 May 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.115329
©2009 American Physical Society