Spark Plasma Sintering = Spark Plasma Synthesis

为了广泛应用，热电材料的制备和随后的固结步骤应该是快速的。因此，需要从市售前体一步制备致密样本。但不可否认的事实是，直流电流对SPS中组分之间的反应有显著影响，由于增加了固态反应的动力学，因此将合成时间从数天/周减少到数分钟/小时。在SPS过程中使用直流电流为我们提供了新的机会，以获得新的材料，这是不可能通过其他合成方法制备。了解这一过程的详细机制将是我们研究的重点。

For widespread application, the preparation and subsequent consolidation steps of thermoelectric materials should be rapid. Therefore, the single-step preparation of a dense specimen from commercially available precursors is desired. But the undeniable fact, that dc-current had a significant influence on the reaction between the components in the SPS, due to increasing the kinetic of the solid-state reactions, as results, a reducing the synthesis time from days / weeks to minutes / hours. Using the dc electrical current in SPS process open us new opportunity to obtain the new materials, which are impossibly to prepare by other synthetic methods. Understanding the detail mechanism of this process will be the focus of our investigations.