doi:10.1016/j.jeurceramsoc.2018.12.032engSola, D.Oliete, P.B.Peña, J. I.Merino, R.I.Directionally solidified Ni doped MgO-MgSZ eutectic composites for thermophotovoltaic devicesART-2019-109595Ni-doped MgO-MgSZ eutectic composites were investigated as selective emitters for thermophotovoltaic devices. MgO-MgSZ:Ni eutectic rods were directionally solidified at 25 and 500 mm/h using the laser floating zone technique. Microstructure was strongly dependent on the growth rate, the size of the eutectic phases decreased as the growth rate increased. A hardness of ~11 GPa and a fracture toughness of ~1.6 MPa were obtained from indentation techniques, not showing dependence on the growth rate. Flexure strength increased from ~400 MPa in samples grown at 25 mm/h up to ~1 GPa for those solidified at 500 mm/h, which was attributed to the decrease of the phase size. Thermal emission of eutectic composites was studied up to 1400 °C. An intense broad emission band centred in 1.5 µm matching with the sensitive region of the GaSb photoconverter was found. The selective emission was ascribed to the de-excitation of the thermally excited Ni2+ ions.2019http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/9710510.1016/j.jeurceramsoc.2018.12.032http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/97105oai:zaguan.unizar.es:97105info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/MAT2013-41045-R-EMITEMEinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/MAT-2016-77769R-FLASCERAMATJournal of the European Ceramic Society 39, 4 (2019), 1206-1213by-nc-ndhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess