Electrical conductivity, thermoelectric power and figure of merit of doped Bi-Sb tapes produced by melt spinning technique

Abstract

Temperature dependence of electrical conductivity and thermoelectric power are presented for In and Pb doped Bi + 8.28 at % Sb quenched tapes between 77 and 300K. The results are explained in terms of model for disordered semiconductors. Analysis of our data on electrical conductivity indicates the presence of a temperature independent part and a strongly temperature dependent part. While theT independent part originates from band conduction, theT dependent component could be understood considering the presence of localized states. Thermoelectric figure-of-merit of these tapes are also measured at 300K, which shows a large enhancement (∼40%) over that reported earlier on thin Bi-Sb films. This suggests that doped Bi-Sb quenched tapes may be considered as a candidate for material in producing economic and light weight thermoelectric devices.