LAUSR

In this study, the Cu–Te alloy ribbons containing nanocrystalline structures were prepared by melt spinning (MS), and were composed of Cu2−xTe, Cu2Te, Cu3−xTe, and CuTe phases. Crystal grains on both sides of the ribbons were uniformly distributed and the grain size of the contact surface was about 400 nm. The Cu–Te powder was incorporated into the Cu2SnSe3 powder by the ball milling process and the Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 thermoelectric composite was prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS). With the amount of Cu–Te powder increasing, the carrier concentration of the Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 composite increased, while the carrier mobility and electrical conductivity initially increased and then decreased. Compared to the Seebeck coefficient of the Cu2SnSe3 matrix, the Seebeck coefficient of the Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 samples increased slightly. Moreover, the Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 composites had lower thermal conductivity and lattice thermal conductivity over the whole temperature range. The lattice thermal conductivity of the 0.8 vol.% Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 composite achieved the lowest value of 0.22 W/m·K, which was 78% lower than that of the Cu2SnSe3 matrix. The maximum figure of merit of the 0.8 vol.% Cu–Te/Cu2SnSe3 composite was 0.45 at 700 K.