ABSTRACT
Some results of these activities are discussed in Section 37.2. The experimental results
obtained by the authors of these papers are displayed in Section 37.3.
The systematic nature of the presented experiments facilitates an analysis of the data. Success of such
an analysis would be especially valuable due to the large number of optimization processes involved in a
purely experimental method. The theory shows that the dependence of dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT
based on the fundamental physical characteristics of a material is included in a materials parameter b:
ZT , b ¼ const
m
m
m
T
x
ð37:1Þ
where m=m
is density of states effective mass, m
is mobility taking into account degeneration of charge
carriers, and x
is the lattice thermal conductivity.
