The Effect of Reactive Electric Field-Assisted Sintering of MoS/BiTe Heterostructure on the Phase Integrity of BiTe Matrix and the Thermoelectric Properties.

In this work, a series of BiTe/X mol% MoS (X = 0, 25, 50, 75) bulk nanocomposites were prepared by hydrothermal reaction followed by reactive spark plasma sintering (SPS). X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) indicates that the native nanopowders, comprising of BiTe/MoS heterostructure, are highly reactive during the electric field-assisted sintering by SPS. The nano-sized MoS particles react with the BiTe plates matrix forming a mixed-anion compound, BiTeS, at the interface between the nanoplates. The transport properties characterizations revealed a significant influence of the nanocomposite structure formation on the native electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity of the initial BiTe matrix. As a result, enhanced values have been obtained in BiTe/25 mol% MoS over the temperature range of 300-475 K induced mainly by a significant increase in the electrical conductivity.