Recently, transition metal silicides have gained considerable attention from the scientific community because of their unique physicochemical properties such as high thermal stability, excellent electronic conductivity, low electrical resistivity, high strength, good thermodynamic stability, good oxidation, and corrosion resistance.
With these favorable properties, transition metal silicides are potential candidates for various nanotechnological applications such as electronics, spintronics, thermoelectrics, and solar energy harvesting.
Among the manganese silicide materials, MnSi1.7, which is a higher manganese silicide, has attracted most interest in the researches for its excellent thermoelectric properties such as low thermal conductivity (2–4 W/m.K), high Seebeck coefficient (>200 mV/K at ~700 K) and estimable figure of merit (up to 0.7–0.8).
Mn5Si3 is one of the promising materials for spintronic applications because of its hexagonal structure, and has the potential to create high magnetocrystalline anisotropy with novel spin-electronic properties.
In addition, Mn5Si3 has a high melting point of 2800 K, indicating that it is a favorable candidate for high-temperature structural applications.