Structral, thermal and electrical properties of $CrSi_2$

Stoichiometric $CrSi_2$ was prepared by arc melting and compacted by uniaxial hot pressing for property measurements. The crystal structure of $Cr_Si_2$ was investigated using the powder x-ray diffraction method. From the Rietveld refinement, the lattice parameters were found to be a =4.427 57 (7) and c=6.368 04 (11) \AA, respectively. The thermal expansion measurement revealed an anisotropic expansion in the temperature range from room temperature 800K with $\alpha_a$ = 14.58 \times $10^{-6}/K$, $\alpha_c$ = 7.51 \times $10^{-6}/K$ and $\alpha_v$ = 12.05 \times $10^{-6}/K$.The volumetric thermal expansion coefficient shows an anomalous decrease in the temperature range of 450-600 K. The measured electrical resitivity and thermoelectric power S have similar trends with a maxima around 550K. Thermal conductivity meaurements show a monotonic decrease with increasing temperature from a room temperature value of 10 W $m^{-1} K^{-1}$.The ZT values incrase with temperature and have a maximum value of 0.18 in the temperature range studied.An analysis of the electronic band structure is provided