Temperature dependence of Electron-diffusion Thermopower in Nanocomposite RuGa3

Abstract

We studied theoretically the temperature dependence of electron-diffusion thermopower of semiconducting intermetallic compound RuGa₃, indicating the presence of electron diffusion thermopower which contributes to a large Seebeck coefficient over a wide temperature range 0 < T < 500K. Since phonon-drag thermopower is expected to be weaker contribution towards total thermopower (Seebeck coefficient) with increasing carrier concentration and at higher temperature. We concentrate only on the electron-diffusion part of Seebeck coefficient. The change from n-type to p-type behavior is observed in RuGa3 which is in good agreement with the experimentally observed behavior.