Estimation of the electrical and thermal contact resistances and thermoemf of thermoelectric material-metal transient contact layer due to semiconductor surface rougness

ThermoEMF of powder-based thermoelectric materials

In the paper, the thermoEMF of powder-based thermoelectric materials (TEM) is calculated. The calculation is made on the assumption of power dependence of mean free path on energy. The thermoEMF decreases with increasing the average radius of powder particles, however, it drastically increases with an increase in power exponent in the law of dependence of the mean free path of relaxation time on energy (scattering index). Therefore, it turns out that the thermoEMF of powder-based TEM with a higher scattering index can be even greater than the thermoEMF of a single-crystal material with a low s…