Sonochemicial Synthesis of AgSbTe_2 Thermoelectric Compounds

Single-phase AgSbTe2 powder was synthesized by sonochemicial method combining with deoxidizing heat-treatment.The influences of heat-treatment temperature,time and the initial ratio of starting reactants on the phases of the final products were investigated.Near single-phase AgSbTe2 ternary powder can be obtained after 2h heat treatment under 500℃,and single-phase AgSbTe2 can be obtained by changing the initio ratio of the starting reactants.Microstructure analysis shows that nanodots with dimension of 20-50nm are uniformly distributed on the surface of the as-prepared powders with the average size of about 10μm.A dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = 1.14 is obtained at 570K for the sample with single phase.