Commercial oxide paints as coatings for SiGe thermoelectric materials

Silicon-germanium alloys are used as thermoelectric materials for radioisotope thermoelectric generators. One problem is the loss of the alloy by sublimation. In the Unicouple, sublimation was minimized by a Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ coating. In the Multicouple design the application of Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ coatings which is done at high temperature is not practical. Suppression of sublimation in the Multicouple design is presently accomplished by applying glass coatings. The difficulties encountered with the glass coatings are associated with the poor adherence of the coatings. In the present study, commercial oxide points (mainly ZrO/sub 2/) which have low thermal expansion coefficients are used as coating materials. No spalling from the surface of the coated sample occurred in 1506 hours at 1080/sup 0/C in vacuum, and sublimation was reduced significantly. Zirconium silicate was observed on the surface by x-ray diffraction