Preparation and property study of La(Fe, Si, Co)13/Cu composite with nearly zero thermal expansion behavior

• The LaFe10.5Co1.0Si1.5/Cu exhibits near zero thermal expansion around RT.
• It has high thermal and electrical conductivity properties.
• It is stable after several thermal cycles.
• Studied the structure of it.
• Analyzed the reasons of near zero thermal expansion property and stability.

In this work, a new kind of La(Fe, Si, Co)13/Cu composite with near zero thermal expansion property was successfully synthesized. The composite shows almost zero thermal expansion with a coefficient of thermal expansion of 0.8 × 10−6 K−1 in the temperature range of 301–325 K. In addition, the thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity were investigated. Compared with pure La(Fe, Si, Co)13 materials, the La(Fe, Si, Co)13/Cu composite shows significant improvement in both thermal and electrical conductivities. The thermal conductivity of the LaFe10.5Co1.0Si1.5/Cu composite is 25.1 W m−1 K−1, which is about five times than that of the pure LaFe10.5Co1.0Si1.5. The electrical resistivity reaches 0.16 × 10−6 Ω m. This offers a new kind of metal matrix composites with low/near zero thermal expansion, high thermal and electrical conductivity properties.

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