Patent ID: 7939744

Claim:
A thermoelectric element formed of a sintered body of a semiconductor comprising at least two kinds of elements selected from the group consisting of Bi, Te, Se and Sb, and having a micro-Vickers' hardness of not smaller than 0.71 GPa and a relative density of not smaller than 98.2%, containing crystalline particles of said semiconductor, and not less than 90% of said semiconductor crystalline particles having a scale-shape with a long-axis diameter of not longer than 10 μm, wherein said sintered body is obtained by firing a starting powder or a molded article of said starting powder to be fired by feeding a heating pulse electric current and applying a pressure of from more than 28 MPa to less than 50 MPa, said pressure being applied at such a timing that the pressurization starts near a temperature at which the powder or the article starts shrinking, and wherein said thermoelectric element is obtained by machining the sintered body, and wherein cut-away defects caused by split-off of the crystalline particles occurred in the surfaces of said elements are suppressed in size to be not larger than 50 μm in maximum depth.