Electronic Structure and Thermoelectric Properties of Al-Mn-Fe-Si Alloys.

In order to develop practical thermoelectric materials consisting solely of environmentally friendly elements, we investigated the thermoelectric properties of the AlMn-type ( P6/ mmc, hp26) AlMnSi alloys and the AlMnSi-type ( Pm-3, cP138) AlMnFeSi alloys, both of which possess a pseudogap at the Fermi level. The formation range in which the single phase is obtained was determined for these two phases. The electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity of the samples involving no secondary phase were measured over the temperature range of 2 K to 300 K. It is found that the thermoelectric properties of these phases are qualitatively accounted for in terms of the pseudogap at the Fermi level in the electronic density of states and the disordering in local atomic arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]