We present a new reactive spark plasma sintering (RSPS) technique for synthesizing the rhombohedral Ca14Si19 phase. The RSPS approach reduces synthesis time from several weeks to few minutes. was found be sufficient obtaining high level of purity under pressure 100 MPa dwell period 5 min at temperature 900 ∘C. From electrical resistivity measurements, we were able determine energy band gap Eg=0...

It is worldwide accepted today that a real breakthrough in the Power Electronics field may mainly come from the development and use of Wide Band Gap (WBG) semiconductor devices. WBG semiconductors such as SiC, GaN, and diamond show superior material properties, which allow operation at high-switching speed, high-voltage and high-temperature. These unique performances provide a qualitative chang...

The optical properties of a novel potential high-efficiency photovoltaic material have been studied. This material is based on a chalcopyritetype semiconductor (CuGaSa) with some Ga atom substituted by Ti and is characterized by the formation of an isolated transition-metal band between the valence band and the conduction band. We present a study in which ab-initio density functional theory cal...