The Effect of Anisotropic Valleys on Phonon Scattering and the Magnetotransport Properties of n-Type PbTe

The success of PbTe as a thermoelectric material has generated growing interest in its charge carrier transport properties. The Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) is solved in a way which takes anisotropy, non-parabolicity, and inelastic scattering fully into account, and an inaccuracy arising from...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of electronic materials 2016-01, Vol.45 (1), p.722-728
Main Authors: Swartz, C. H., Petersen, J. E., Welch, E. W., Myers, T. H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Chemistry and Materials Science
Electric properties
Electronics and Microelectronics
Instrumentation
Magnetic fields
Materials Science
Optical and Electronic Materials
Scattering
Solid State Physics
Thermodynamics
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Summary:The success of PbTe as a thermoelectric material has generated growing interest in its charge carrier transport properties. The Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) is solved in a way which takes anisotropy, non-parabolicity, and inelastic scattering fully into account, and an inaccuracy arising from the standard treatment of phonon emission scattering is corrected. The method is used to calculate the conductivity and Hall coefficient of n -PbTe over a wide range of temperatures and doping levels, and it is found that room temperature measurements of PbTe may underestimate the true carrier concentration in some cases by a factor of 2. Experimental results on both bulk and epitaxial samples are in reasonable agreement with the predictions. A conducting p -type layer is also observed in the epitaxial films, exhibiting both persistent photoconductivity and sensitivity to air exposure.
ISSN:0361-5235
1543-186X
DOI:10.1007/s11664-015-4184-8