Rapid fabrication of diffusion barrier between metal electrode and thermoelectric materials using current-controlled spark plasma sintering technique

A continuous, stable diffusion barrier between PbTe thermoelectric material and Ni conducting electrode was generated using the current-controlled spark plasma sintering technique. This new method creates a diffusion barrier layer by utilising the melt generated in the area of contact between components, also called the weld nugget in a resistance spot welding process. The current-controlled spark plasma sintering process bonds the solid workpieces in a fraction of the time required to fabricate interphase layers using powder components with the common temperature-controlled spark plasma sintering. The substantially reduced time of bonding compared to previous methods is beneficial to the thermoelectric properties of materials due to their limited exposure to high temperatures, which occasionally are much higher than the operating temperatures of devices. This work introduces a rapid and efficient bonding technique that can be applied to a wide variety of materials.