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Nature of the Thermoelectric Power in Bipolar Semiconductors

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Abstract

Thermoelectricity increasingly draws the attention of researchers because it can provide us with methods to generate environmentally clean energy and solid-state cooling. However, some problems in thermoelectricity’s physics remain unsolved. In this paper, a new approach to thermoelectric phenomena is presented, one that uses a linear description of the nonequilibrium charge carrier transport. The role of nonequilibrium carriers of both surface and bulk recombination processes has been shown to be crucial even within the linear approximation. Electron and hole quasi-Fermi levels originated from the thermal field are explicitly obtained in the case of a thermoelectric current flowing through an external circuit; the necessary corresponding boundary conditions are obtained. For the first time, it is shown that the quasi-Fermi level of one of the carriers can be a nonmonotonous function of spatial coordinates. General expressions for the thermoelectric current, the thermo-electromotive force (thermo-emf), and the electrical resistance of bipolar semiconductors have been obtained. Also for the first time, the influence of both surface recombination and surface resistance in thermoelectric phenomena was taken into account.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Prof. Enrique Velazquez-Peres and Drs. I. N. Volovichev, A. Meriuts, and I. Lashkevych for remarks and fruitful discussions on issues covered in this paper. Yu.G.G. and O.Yu.T. are grateful to CONACYT (Mexico) for partial financial support. L.P.B. thanks the Ministry of Education and Science (Russia) for partial support (Grants RFMEFI57914X0039-14.579.21.0039, RFMEFI58415X0013-14.584.21.0013 and 3/912/2014/K).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas 152, 07730, México, CDMX, Mexico

    O. Yu Titov

  2. ITMO University, Kronverksky Ave., St. Petersburg, Russia, 197101

    L. P. Bulat

  3. Giredmet Ltd., B. Tolmachevsky Lane, Building 5-1, Moscow, Russia, 119017

    L. P. Bulat

  4. Departamento de Física, CINVESTAV-IPN, Av. IPN 2508, Apartado Postal 14-740, 07300, México, CDMX, Mexico

    Yu. G. Gurevich

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  1. O. Yu Titov
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  2. L. P. Bulat
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Correspondence to Yu. G. Gurevich.

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Titov, O.Y., Bulat, L.P. & Gurevich, Y.G. Nature of the Thermoelectric Power in Bipolar Semiconductors. Int J Thermophys 37, 86 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-016-2094-5

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