Porous Si-Sn alloys produced by mechanical alloying and subsequent consolidation by sintering and hot-pressing

Porous Si100-xSnx samples with x = 15, 30 and 40 at.% were produced from Si and Sn elemental powders by mechanical alloying followed by two different compaction and sintering processes: cold uniaxial pressure and subsequent sintering at 220°C, and hot pressing at 240°C. The results showed that it is possible to produce samples with a major porosity of close to 0.1 μm. The porosity of the Si70Sn30 sample that was mechanically alloyed for 12 h and synthesized by the former process is in the mesoporous region. The structure of all the final samples is composed of the Si, Sn and SnO phases.