  Herein, we demonstrate that BiCuSeO compound can be formed in bulk directly
from the raw materials through reactive spark plasma sintering (RSPS) followed
by ball milling and a second short spark plasma sintering step. Compared to
BiCuSeO samples obtained by a conventional solid-state reaction, the electrical
transport properties of the RSPS bulk were moderately affected by the sintering
technique, while the lattice thermal conductivity was almost unaffected, and
the figure of merit zT attained a value at 773 K comparable to state-of-the-art
BiCuSeO. The results indicate a new scalable method for the preparation of
oxyselenides.
