Dependence of thermal conductivity on electrical resistivity in Bismuth–Tellurides Original Research Article

The p-type (Bi0.25Sb0.75)2Te3 doped with 3–12 wt% excess Te alone and n-type Bi2(Te0.94Se0.06)3 codoped with 0.017–0.026 wt% Te and 0.068–0.102 wt% I were prepared by the Bridgman method, to produce intentionally polycrystalline. Some of the as-grown specimens were annealed, in order to prepare specimens with much different ρ. These polycrystalline specimens have almost the same degree of alignment of the c plane parallel to the freezing direction. The electrical rersistivity ρ and thermal conductivity κ were measured at 298 K along the freezing direction and κ was plotted as a function of ρ. As a result, the lattice components κph obtained by subtracting the electronic component κel from the observed κ were found to decrease almost linearly with a decrease of ρ in both p- and n-type specimens, where κel was calculated using Wiedemann–Franz law. This tendency is consistent with the conventional result that κph becomes negligible small in metals. The significant decrease in κph with decrease in ρ is considered to be caused predominantly by the phonon scattering due to dopants. The relationship between κph and ρ was first clarified in the intermediate region between the metal and insulator.