Electrical transport and thermoelectric properties of PbTe prepared by HPHT

Abstract

In this paper, n-type lead telluride (PbTe) compounds without doping were sucessfully prepared at high pressure and high temperature (HPHT). The carrier type was induced by the effect of pressure. The results of the electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity for n-type PbTe, which were measured at room temperature, show that the PbTe samples prepared by HPHT exhibit the same characteristics as heavily doped semiconductors. The figure-of-merit, 2, of 5.46 × 10-4 K-1 was obtained, which is higher than the heavily doped samples of PbTe at room temperature. These results indicate that this method has potential application in obtaining good quality thermoelectric materials with improved properties.