Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Transport models have predicted that the thermal conductivity of SiGe alloys could be appreciably reduced by incorporating a discrete 40Å particles with the SiGe grains. Such a thermal conductivity reduction would lead to substantial improvements in the figure-of-merit of thermoelectric materials. This paper reports on recent results on adding 40Å particles to SiGe via a spark erosion process. Thermal conductivity reductions consistent with the transport models have been achieved, however, the improvement in figure-of-merit has not been as large as predicted.