Preparation of n-type Bi2Te3 thermoelectric materials by non-contact dispenser printing combined with selective laser melting

The manufacturing cost has been a bottle neck for broader applications of thermoelectric (TE) modules. We have developed a rapid, facile, and low cost method that combines non-contact dispenser printing with selective laser melting (SLM) and we demonstrate it on n-type Bi2Te3-based materials. Using this approach, single phase n- type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 thin layers with the Seebeck coefficient of -152 mu VK-1 at 300K have been prepared. Assembling such thin layers on top of each other, the performance of thus prepared bulk sample is comparable to Bi2Te3-based materials fabricated by the conventional techniques. Dispenser printing combined with SLM is a promising manufacturing process for TE materials. (C) 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim