Pisarenko's Formula for the Thermopower

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Novitskii, Andrei, Mori, Takao
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Novitskii, Andrei
Mori, Takao
author_facet Novitskii, Andrei
Mori, Takao
contents The thermopower $α$ (also known as the Seebeck coefficient) is one of the most fundamental material characteristics for understanding charge carrier transport in thermoelectric materials. Here, we revisit the Pisarenko formula for the thermopower, which was traditionally considered valid only for non-degenerate semiconductors. We demonstrate that regardless of the dominating scattering mechanism, the Pisarenko formula describes accurately enough the relationship between thermopower $α$ and charge carrier concentration $n$ beyond the non-degenerate limit. Moreover, the Pisarenko formula provides a simple thermopower-conductivity relation, $α= \pm \frac{k_{\mathrm{B}}}{e} (b - \ln σ)$, valid for materials with $α> 90$ $μ$V K$^{-1}$ when acoustic phonon scattering is predominant. This offers an alternative way to analyze electron transport when Hall measurements are difficult or inaccessible. Additionally, we show how the Pisarenko formula can be used to estimate the maximum power factor of a thermoelectric material from the weighted mobility of a single, not necessarily optimized, sample at any given temperature.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_03837
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Pisarenko's Formula for the Thermopower
Novitskii, Andrei
Mori, Takao
Materials Science
Physics Education
The thermopower $α$ (also known as the Seebeck coefficient) is one of the most fundamental material characteristics for understanding charge carrier transport in thermoelectric materials. Here, we revisit the Pisarenko formula for the thermopower, which was traditionally considered valid only for non-degenerate semiconductors. We demonstrate that regardless of the dominating scattering mechanism, the Pisarenko formula describes accurately enough the relationship between thermopower $α$ and charge carrier concentration $n$ beyond the non-degenerate limit. Moreover, the Pisarenko formula provides a simple thermopower-conductivity relation, $α= \pm \frac{k_{\mathrm{B}}}{e} (b - \ln σ)$, valid for materials with $α> 90$ $μ$V K$^{-1}$ when acoustic phonon scattering is predominant. This offers an alternative way to analyze electron transport when Hall measurements are difficult or inaccessible. Additionally, we show how the Pisarenko formula can be used to estimate the maximum power factor of a thermoelectric material from the weighted mobility of a single, not necessarily optimized, sample at any given temperature.
title Pisarenko's Formula for the Thermopower
topic Materials Science
Physics Education
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.03837