Thermoelectric transport in superlatices

摘要

A quantitative description of the ower factor for thermoelectric transport in quantum well and quantum wire superlattices has been developed. The size dependence of the carrier sucattering rates as well as carrier tunneling between layers are included, and results are obtained for full three-dimensional superlattice systems. In addition, model calculations of the lattice thermal conductivity of free standing wells and wires have been obtained, and their implications for the thermoelectric figure of merit are discussed. Illustrative results are given for GaAs and PbTe systems.