Thermo emf in bipolar semiconductors

摘要

An expression for the thermo electromotive force (emf) in bipolar bounded semiconductor samples is obtained by taking into account both volume and surface recombination rates. It is shown that the thermo emf value mainly depends on the ratio of sample length to diffusion length and also on surface recombination rates and on the surface conductivity of carriers. It is necessary to point out that the thermo emf dependence on the surface parameters is preserved in samples in which the length significantly exceeds the carriers' diffusion length.