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The phase transition and the crystal structures of CuITe were investigated by differential thermal analysis and X-ray powder diffraction measurements in the temperature range between 300 and 683 K. The new phase transition in CuITe was observed at 592 K. The enthalpy of transition is ΔH=0.125 kJ mol-1. The new phase above 592 K belongs to tetragonal system with the space group I41/amd.

We have developed a multi-channel measurement system for combinatorial investigation of thermoelectric materials. The measurement apparatus has ten series of pin-probe array which enables us to measure the Seebeck coefficient and electric conductivity of 10 samples simultaneously. A successful measurement on a composition-spread thin films library indicated that this measurement system is highly useful for the high-speed exploration of thermoelectric materials by combinatorial approach.

Heat capacity measurements were carried out on Pb1-xLaxWO4+x/2(x=0.2) and Pb1-xLa2x/3WO4(x=0.2, 0.5) solid solutions prepared by sintering and mechanical alloying (MA) methods. For all the solid solutions, sintered samples showed slightly larger heat capacity around 100 K in comparison with MA samples, which was presumably caused by the excitation of mobile oxide ion motion. For sintered scheelite-type structured PbWO4s, high-temperature synthesis introduced oxide ion interstitials even for the Pb1-xLa2x/3WO4system, which resulted in the excess heat capacity at low temperature for excitation. On the other hand, for the samples prepared by room-temperature MA technique, oxide ion seemed to occupy the regular sites rather than interstitial ones and excess heat capacities were not observed.

Heat capacity of spinel LiCr1/6Mn11/6O4-d(d=0, 0.0184)was measured between 5 and 300 K. Both compounds showed no anomaly in the measured temperature range, especially around the room temperature where a structural phase transition is reported for the parent compound LiMn2O4. The non-stoichiometric compound LiCr1/6Mn11/6O3.9816has greater heat capacity than that of the stoichiometric LiCr1/6Mn11/6O4. Molecular dynamics study on the vibrational property of LiMn2O4-drevealed that the lattice defects in the non-stoichiometric compound increase the low frequency phonons compared with the stoichiometric compound. It should be related to the greater heat capacity of the non-stoichiometric compound LiCr1/6Mn11/6O3.9816.

The sample of LiCoO2was synthesized, and the heat capacity was measured by adiabatic calorimetry between 13 and 300 K. The smoothed values of the heat capacity were calculated from the data. The thermodynamic functions, standard enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs energy, of LiCoO2were calculated from the heat capacity and the numerical values are tabulated at selected temperatures from 15 to 300 K. The heat capacity, enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs energy at T=298.15 K are 71.57 J K–1mol–1, 9.853 kJ mol–1, 52.45 J K–1mol–1, –5.786 kJ mol–1, respectively.