ИСТИНА

Nowadays various intermetallic compounds are being widely investigated as prospective thermoelectric materials. Among them are compounds of the IrIn3 structure type. For instance, Zn or Sn substituted RuIn3 possess a high figure-of-merit ZT = 0.8. It is known that compounds with the IrIn3 structure type are formed by combination a transition metal from either the group 8 or 9 on the one hand and p-metal, Ga or In, on the other hand, and the number of valence electron ranges between 17 and 18. Owing to strong hybridization of d- and p-orbitals of a transition metal and p-metal, respectively, a gap opens near the Fermi level, and for 17 electron compound this level may fall into the gap causing semiconductor properties. Tuning the Fermi level by the substitution into d- or p-sublattices affects the transport properties, which make these compounds promising thermoelectric materials. Until recently, only one IrIn3 structure type’s member has been known in which the group 7 metal is contained in the d-sublattice under normal conditions. This is Fe1-xMnxGa3 solid solution†. In our work, new Fe1-xRexGa3 solid solution was synthesized. In addition, the low and high-temperature thermoelectric properties of the Fe1-xMnxGa3 and Fe1-xRexGa3 solid solutions in comparison to each other were investigated. Furthermore, we obtained first IrIn3 structure type member, in which the d-sublattice consists entirely of the group 7 element - rhenium. The peculiarities of crystal structure, composition and thermoelectric properties of new compounds will be presented in this report.