Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.90, No.12, 4005-4008, 2007
Electrical transport properties of La2CuO4 ceramics processed by the spark plasma sintering
Highly dense La2CuO4 ceramics have been prepared by the spark plasma sintering technique. Temperature dependence of electrical conductivity indicates that La2CuO4 ceramics sintered at over 875 degrees C exhibit a metal-like behavior, which should be ascribed to the special La2CuO4 crystal structure and its correlation splitting of the half-filled d(x2-y2) band. Our experimental data indicate that all of the La2CuO4 samples exhibit positive thermoelectric power in the whole measuring temperature range, indicating that the majority of charge carriers are holes. It is desirable to obtain good thermoelectric performance for this system by optimizing the electrical properties and reducing the thermal conductivity.