Laser melting was used to synthesize thermoelectric compounds including alloys, intermetallic compounds, and oxides.
The binary alloy compositions were identical with the nominal ones.
The resulting phases agreed well with the phase diagrams, in which high temperature phases were preferentially formed.
Pseudo binary systems of Mn-Al alloys and Si were required to produce stoichiometric ternary Mn-Al-Si compounds.
The heating was primary determined by light absorptance, rather than the thermal conductivity or absorption mechanism.